


Camp Lake Altea

by CheckeredCloth



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Gay Keith (Voltron), Hispanic Lance (Voltron), Humor, Hunk/Lance (Voltron) Friendship, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 08:18:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7566940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheckeredCloth/pseuds/CheckeredCloth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a new counselor gets hired on at Camp Lake Altea, Lance is almost positive he's seen the guy somewhere before; unfortunately, Lance is too busy wrangling unruly campers and pissing Keith off to figure out their past history.</p><p>Well, what happens at camp stays at camp.  Usually.</p><p>(A Summer Camp counselor AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

After two separate flights, six really greasy fast-food meals, and five hours of driving with a numb left ass-cheek, Lance is more than a little relieved to finally see the familiar wooden signs indicating the Camp grounds; the car grumbles to a stop, tires kicking gravel every which-way as he parks in a huge clearing surrounded by large, rustic log cabins.

"I really think I might be sick," Hunk groans, sliding out of the passenger side of Lance's rental Jeep, empty McDonald's bag clutched in one hand and a red slushy in the other. "Like, the threat of projectile vomit has become seriously legit."

Lance shakes his head, climbing out of the driver's seat and slinging his duffel over one shoulder; because he's a fabulous human being, he slings Hunk's over the other shoulder. "You say that every year."

"Because every year, you drive us up the mountain like a crazy person."

"Well, next year, you can drive us up the mountain, darling."

"No, no, no," Hunk says, shaking his hands and paling further. "You know that the only way I can handle that drive is with my eyes closed and my head between my knees."

"Then quit your griping," Lance says, clapping a hand on Hunk's shoulder. "And get a good whiff of nature."

Hunk actually does, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He smiles a bit and opens his eyes. "I forget sometimes how much I miss this place."

Lance doesn't say anything in response to that, but he doesn't have to; the beautiful thing about his and Hunk's relationship is that they're always on the same frequency.

For example: Lance looks around at the beautiful and familiar terrain (the log buildings and the evergreen trees, the ghostly-hued mountains and the sparkling lake just visible down the valley, and all cast in the sepia lighting of the evening lanterns), feels that familiar buzz of nostalgia that a person gets when standing in a place of actually _pleasant_ childhood memories, and he doesn't have to say anything, because Hunk _gets_ it.

If Hunk wasn't so straight, Lance would have married him long ago.

Hunk suddenly peers up the hill at the porch of the main house, squinting into the glare of the setting sun. "I think I see Allura up there. But I don't recognize who she's talking to."

"Early camper?"

Hunk shakes his head. "Too big, unless the poor kid has a glandular issue; it's probably a new staff-member."

"Really?" Lance says, surprised. There hasn't been any new employees in three years; Allura has been slow to trust since her father died, leaving her all the financial burdens of his mountain-side camp. "Hold on a sec..."

"You know," Hunk says when Lance whips out a pair of camp binoculars from his duffel. "I think taking those home with you during the school year constitutes an abuse of equipment privileges."

"You don't think he's here to replace me, do you?" Lance asks Hunk, ignoring the comment. He squints through his binoculars at an attractive, male individual on the porch (at least, the back of said person is attractive, which is all Lance can see from where he's standing). "It wouldn't surprise me if Allura let me drive all the way out here just to fire me. She's never forgiven me for junior year."

"I think spying on them _also_ constitutes an abuse of your equipment privileges," Hunk continues, slurping noisily on his slushy through a big, pink straw. He tugs the binoculars out of Lance's grasp and uses them to spy on the newcomer as well, the hypocrite. "Also, she can't fire you unless she finds someone else who can speak Spanish. He doesn't look very Spanish-speaking-y."

"Really? What does he look like?"

Hunk shrugs, lowering the binoculars. "I don't know. Cool, I guess? Kind of angry. Possibly a little punk-ish. Aaand he's going inside..."

"Hunk!" a feminine voice shouts from up on the porch, one of the subjects of their spying finally noticing their arrival. Allura jogs down to meet them, throwing her arms around the larger man. "I wasn't certain that you'd return this year!"

"I wouldn't miss it," Hunk says, patting her on her slender, plaid-covered back. His smile turns a bit sheepish. "Also, I need the school money."

"Fair enough," she says, stepping back and beaming. She turns to Lance, and the smile is replaced by a raised eyebrow. "Lance."

 _"Allura,"_ Lance says in his most suave, manliest voice. She rolls her eyes and gives him a hug as well, swatting him in the kidney when he starts making kissing noises in the vicinity of her left ear.

"Now that you two are here," she says, ignoring Lance's grunt of pain, "I assume you know your duties?"

"Drop off our stuff, round up the kiddies, drop them off at their respective cabins, and commence drinking Coran's secret stash of beer in the Counselors Lounge," Lance says, ticking off the tasks one-by-one on his fingers. "Piece of cake."

Allura smiles, a mischievous edge to it. "All correct, save the last: you are going to be a live-in counselor this year, which means no drinking," she says, holding up a silver key. "Cabin number seven."

Lance groans. "You're kidding," he says, snatching the key and pocketing it begrudgingly. "I was live-in last year. It's Shiro's turn." The campers need constant supervision, and being live-in means he'll basically be on the clock twenty-four hours a day: he'll eat meals, attend activities, and bunk in the same cabin with his kids for the entirety of the summer. Privacy is non-existent.

"Shiro is also live-in," Allura says, shrugging. "I'm short-staffed this year, and I need all hands on-deck."

Lance sighs but doesn't argue; he was really hoping for his own room this year, but he knows better to argue with Allura when she starts using nautical references.

"Hey," he says, as they all start to head to Bear Hug Cabin, where the ten, eleven, and twelve year-old campers should be saying good-bye to their families. "Who's the new guy you were talking to?"

Allura looks back over her shoulder at him. "He's our new archery instructor. Coran's quite lost his taste for teaching since the flaming arrow incident last year." She narrows her eyes at Lance in suspicion. "Why?"

Lance raises his hands in supplication. "No reason. I just thought the back of his mullet looked kind of familiar. What's his name?"

Allura opens her mouth to respond, but, before Lance gets his answer, all three of them finally arrive at a crowd of emotionally-charged preteens and their over-wrought parents.

"There, there, now," Coran says to teary-eyed mother who appears to have a death-grip on her child's tee shirt. "I'm sure he'll be perfectly safe. I must insist that you take the bear-spray home with you, however, as we are discouraged from having things on premise that can literally blind children."

Minutes later, Lance finds himself caught up in gathering straggling kids, learning their names, and joking around until the stress leaves their faces and they actually seem somewhat at ease; Lance likes working with kids (it's the reason why he's majoring in child psychology, specifically), and he likes helping them. He actually hopes to be a father some day, though he won't admit it to anyone save Hunk...

He gets so wrapped up in the evening's events that he manages to ignore the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that tells him he's missing something.

+++

Early the next morning, Lance is half-slumped on the table in a dining hall full of perky, chatting campers, nursing a cup of coffee and trying not to nurse his bad mood; he's way jet-lagged and not really good at the late-night thing anymore (which is sad, because he's only twenty-one and should probably be doing body-shots in a German bar somewhere, hooking up with random strangers whose names he can't pronounce).

But instead of getting wasted in a foreign locale, he's eating Raisin Bran at seven in the morning with an equally exhausted-looking Pidge, and he secretly finds the latter scenario preferable to the former.

"What has your panties in a bunch this fine day, my morning lark?" Lance asks his fellow counselor around a yawn. Pidge has been muttering darkly while systematically stirring five Sweet'N Low's into a bowl of Bran.

Pidge looks up at the question and then back down at the hyperglycemic nightmare. "I spent most of the night wandering the camp and trying to establish Wi-Fi hotspots." Pidge holds up one arm and tugs down the sweatshirt sleeve to display several light scratches. "I had to climb a tree, at one point."

Lance blinks, unsure what climbing trees has to do with it. "Why? We're out in B.F.E. because it's what people pay for. Who cares if we're fully connected to the outside world or not?"

Pidge shrugs. "The parents do. It's a different world from when we were kids, even if that was only a few years ago: parents don't _just_ want their kids going to camp; they want them doing online reading assignments and taking online classes and posting pictures on Grandma's Facebook page of that giant bear turd they almost stepped in on Trail #9."

"That's ridiculous," Lance scoffs. "Okay, not that last part; that last part sounds cool. Summer Camp is supposed to be a place where kids don't have to deal with adults' bullshit."

Pidge shrugs again. "I agree, but what can anyone do about it?" Pidge takes a bite of cereal and grimaces. "Okay, that's disgusting. I'm going to go get a bagel with peanut butter." And then Lance is alone at the staff table, but not for long.

"Hey..."  Lance looks to his left to see the New Guy standing there with a tray. "Uh, can I sit here?"

Lance glances up and down the rows of empty seats at the table, confused; Lance and Pidge are the ones in charge of rounding up campers for breakfast in the mornings and are usually the only staff awake at this hour, besides Allura. "...Yes?" he answers, unsure if it might be a trick question.

New Guy nods stiffly and takes the seat right next to Lance.

And wow, if he looked pretty good at a distance, then it's nothing compared to how he looks up close: New Guy is dark-haired and lean and supple and serious-looking (and if Lance had a type, it would probably be people who Mean Business), with that mullet that Lance saw through the binoculars but can't judge too harshly, because it kind of works.

"Hey, I'm Lance," Lance says, holding out one hand and hoping that the words don't come out as squeaky as they sound in his head.

New Guy takes his hand, fingers warm and slender but strong. "Keith."

And Lance feels his brows furrow, gaping a bit, because something in the way Keith says his own name, in the way his hand feels in Lance's, is so freaking familiar it's _scary._

The moment stretches into awkwardness, and when Keith pointedly clears his throat they both snatch their hands away.

"Um..." Lance says, flushing and flexing his fingers a bit. "Sorry? I haven't finished my coffee yet and probably shouldn't be allowed to interact with other human beings."

Keith coughs, ears turning pink. "It's fine," he says, starting to slice pieces of banana into his unsweetened Cheerios. His hands move quick and easy, and Lance can see why he's the new archery instructor.

Lance taps his fingers against the table, hoping to salvage this conversation. "Sooo... what brings you to this neck of the woods?"

Keith blinks at him. "...Breakfast?"

"No, I mean..." Lance gestures vaguely to Keith's person, hopefully indicating his clean clothes and proper posture. "You're not very... Summer Camp counselor-ish." He then looks over at Pidge in the corner, who has a spoonful of peanut butter in one hand and is picking at a scab with another.

Keith follows his line of sight and seems to get his meaning. "My foster brother suggested I come here, actually. He said it would be a good experience, that it would help me finish my thesis and get into a good grad school."

"Your foster brother? Do I know him?"

"You should. He's the head counselor."

Lance's jaw drops. _"Shiro_ is your foster brother?" Damn that Shiro: he should've warned Lance that he had a hot brother who was coming to work for Allura.

Then again, he wouldn't put it past Shiro to be off somewhere in the woods right now, curling a fifty-pound weight and chuckling wholesomely at the chaos he has wrought in the world.

Keith smirks, like he's used to this kind of reaction. "Yeah, I get that a lot. Anyway, he's been trying to get me up to this place for two years. I finally caved about three weeks ago."

Lance gives a low whistle. "Hey, that's pretty impressive. I've never seen anyone able to deny Shiro something for two seconds let alone two years."

"Yeah. He can be pretty fucking persuasive..." Keith mutters, eyebrows furrowing as he glances back into the main area of the hall.

Lance follows his line of sight and sees only campers (one with braided hair is trying to dare another to eat a bug she just found under her shoe, but hey, that's nothing special). "What's up?" Lance asks.

Keith frowns a bit, eyes peering at Lance in a way that means he's probably being sized up for trustworthiness. "I'm... still not sure coming here was a great idea."

"Why? Shiro thinks so, and he's right about stuff, like, ninety-eight percent of the time."

"This might be the other two percent. I'm not great with kids..." Keith scoops Cheerios up with his spoon and watches them waterfall back into the bowl again. "Or... people, really."

Lance's eyes widen at this little nugget of information, and then - he can't help it - he laughs.

"What?" Keith asks, spine straightening and hackles raising like a cat that's had water dumped on it. "What's so funny?" He glares daggers into Lance's face.

"You," Lance wheezes. This is priceless. "You look like the kind of guy who's so got his shit in order, but you pick the _worst_ fucking summer job in the universe for someone who doesn't like kids." Lance settles down, wiping a tear from the corner of his eyes with one finger. "They are gonna tear you apart like Hunk's home-made strudel."

Keith scowls. "I'll be _fine,_ asshole."

"Hey, hold onto that spirit, and buzz me on my radio if you need a rescue."

"I won't, but go ahead and say what you need to to make yourself feel good."

 _I wouldn't mind making you feel good,_ Lance's libido supplies unhelpfully. Lance ignores it in favor of continuing to smirk at Keith, who is still glaring at Lance.

That's how Pidge finds them a moment later.

"Uh... Lance?" Pidge says, jutting a thumb back at the campers. "Sorry to interrupt whatever this is, but the natives are getting restless."

Sure enough, Lance can hear the increased chatter and screeching of chairs that means people are starting to disperse; he thinks he can see a group of campers out of the corner of his eye who are creeping dangerously toward the lake-side exit.

"Duty calls," he says, downing the dregs of his cold coffee and getting to his feet. He mimes holding a phone to his ear. "But seriously, buzz me if things get desperate."

Keith rolls his eyes. "I don't think I could ever be that desperate."

"Sure," Lance says, getting swept up in a crowd of impatient, lake-bound pre-teens. "Just ask Allura what happened to the last guy who had your job!" he calls over his shoulder.

He's rewarded with the sight of Keith looking like he's eaten a bad banana before Lance is out in the blinding, summer light.


	2. Chapter 2

Lance is assigned to lake-watch for the entirety of Day One, which is both a blessing and a curse:

It's a blessing because he's still jet-lagged as hell, and any activities that require skill or dexterity or adequate instruction are pretty much off the books (he really feels for Shiro, who flew all the way from fucking _Canada_ and is leading a few hiking groups today; then again, Shiro is also probably an immortal space-alien from a very productive planet and doing just fine). All he has to do is keep a sharp eye on his kids and work on his tan.

It's also a bit of a curse, because he's stuck in the muggy lifeguard stand for hours on end - engaging in minimal physical activity - and the urge to nod off is colossal. He's pretty fucking relieved when the bell chimes for the mid-morning break and he can pull the kids from the water.

"Okay, guys, line up, arms out and eyes closed," Lance shouts, grinning with amusement at the kids who do so without a trace of argument (some of the older kids give him a speculative look but slowly comply). He and Hunk then proceed to coat the lot of them in a thick cloud of spray-on SPF 50, trying not to chuckle at the tiny noses scrunching up in distaste.

When he's got a shiny line-up of what looks to be gold-tinted, adolescent robots, he tosses each of them a granola bar and a bottle of water.

"Okay, sit in the shade for twenty minutes," he says, and receives a chorus of groans. "Yeah, yeah, I'm terrible. But you'll thank me when you leave this place not smelling like Coran's home-made sunburn ointment."

That quiets the protests, and after Lance does another headcount, he and Hunk sit in a couple shady chairs by the dock, watching the kids mill around.

"So," Lance says, taking a swig of water and trying to sound super casual. "Met the new guy, yet?"

Hunk hums and hands him a granola bar. "Oh, yeah. He came by the dining hall last night." Hunk is technically the camp Nutritional Supervisor (AKA cook) and not a counselor, but he is so beloved by all that he tends to roam the camp and help where needed. "He wanted to know good jogging trails."

Lance tips down the rim of his sunglasses to properly stare at his friend. "...Jogging trails?"

"Yep."

"He came down to the dining hall to ask you, a complete stranger, about _trails_... Why the hell didn't he just ask his brother, who has worked here forever and jogs five miles a day _uphill?"_

"No clue." Hunk shrugs and tears open the wrapper on a granola bar. "Though, I think he might have been hedging around the question he really wanted to ask. He asked a few questions about you, actually."

 _"Me?"_ Lance says, a little too loudly, a few campers peek very curiously in their direction. "I only met the guy this morning. What could he possibly want to know about me?" Lance asks, lowering his voice again.

"Pretty basic stuff: like, where you're from and where we go to school and how long you've worked here... things like that."

"And what did you tell him?"

"Oh, pretty much everything," Hunk says around a mouthful of granola. "Everything he asked, anyway. And probably some other stuff."

"Hunk!" Lance gapes, horrified. "You can't just tell people my personal crap. For all we know, he could be some psycho-stalker who wants to murder me and wear my skin as a suit."

"You were the one who said yesterday that you thought you recognized his mullet. Maybe he recognizes you, too."

"Just because I might have met him before doesn't mean he isn't trying to kill me!"

"If it comes to that," Hunk says, handing Lance a bar. "Then I'll make sure to keep people's personal lives on the D.L. from then on. Eat your snack."

Lance sullenly takes a bite of granola, wincing when his teeth crack into something hard. "Ow. What's in this?"

"A vitamin. When I can't get our cat to take a pill, I put it in food. So, I thought: 'Why not do the same with campers and their vitamins?' I figured I should test it on you first, though."

"Well, it didn't work. I found it," Lance says, spitting out the horse-pill into the dirt. "Also, I think this strategy might be illegal."

"Huh. In that case, I'll run it by Allura at tonight's Staff Meeting."

Lance peers at a couple of campers off to the side of the group, tugging at some branches of a nearby shrub with speculative looks in their eyes. Break-time over (Lance doesn't want a full-on Jedi Stick War, especially on the first day).

"Look, I've gotta go," he says to Hunk, pushing up from his chair and tucking his throw ring under one arm. "Don't tell anyone anymore shit!"

"That's really unspecific!" Hunk shouts, but Lance is already in a swarm of kids.

+++

That night's Staff Meeting takes place in the Counselors' Lounge, and it's one of the most awkward by far that Lance has ever attended; this is most likely due to the fact that Lance is not filling up all the empty silences with random, distracting chatter like he normally would, because he's too busy not-watching Keith out of the corner of his eye.

Allura has her usual grace and poise despite the weird tension in the air. "Today was a great start to the summer," she says to the room, blue eyes twinkling. "The campers are getting along, the staff is superb, as usual." She looks to Shiro, who nods humbly. "No one drowned." She looks pointedly at Lance, who makes a face.

"And I'm very excited to say," she continues, turning to where Keith is leaning nonchalantly against the door-frame, arms crossed. "That our new addition is adjusting _wonderfully."_

Keith, like Shiro, nods respectfully at the praise. But when Allura turns back to face the rest of the room, he smirks pointedly at Lance, as if to say: _Ha. Nailed it._

Lance makes a face at him, too.

"Thank you for that excellent opening statement, Allura!" Coran interjects, smiling at her fondly. "But on to the nitty-gritty, I say. Has everyone read their handbooks on what to do in the event of an outbreak of lice or fecal parasites?"

Keith's smug expression is replaced by one of abject horror, matched by that of everyone else in the room. "Is that a problem here?" he asks, voice squeaking at the end.

"Not usually, but you can never be too careful!" Coran says, fingers stroking his mustache thoughtfully. "Especially when you have a prime specimen of facial hair such as this."

 _"Thank you,_ Coran," Allura says, grimacing and patting her mentor on the shoulder. "I'm sure everyone's read their handbooks and is quite ready to turn in. Why don't we just dole out the weeks assignments?"

"Certainly," Coran says, picking up his clipboard and flipping to the last page. "Now, normally, we would have Lance and Shiro teaching the tykes to water-ski first week, but, because we have a new recruit, it's been moved to week three." Coran turns to where Lance is seated, cross-legged on the pool table. "Lance, you'll be co-supervising the two-day nature hike with Keith, while he gets his sea-legs."

Lance and Keith both look at one another and then back at Coran, in shocked unison. "Um," Lance says, pointing a finger at Shiro. "Maybe you forgot, but _Shiro_ is our hiking supervisor. I'm the lake guy.  And isn't Keith supposed to be teaching the kids _archery?"_

"That's the wonderful thing about being short-staffed," Coran says. "Everybody gets to do a bit of everything! Take it as an excellent learning opportunity."

Lance looks over to where Keith is standing, ears pink and looking anywhere but at Lance, and has a feeling that it'll definitely be a learning experience.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning takes all of Lance's not-inconsiderable skill and experience just to get his kids up, dressed, and out the door by the crack of dawn (and Lance is not at all surprised that his cabin is full of late-risers; they take after their counselor).

When they finally manage to make their way up the hill to the meeting point, Keith is already there with his group, of course, dressed like the kind of hiker you would find on the cover of _Backpacker._ He'd look pretty cool if he wasn't also looking so uncomfortable, locked in a stare-off with a small camper standing at his hip.

"Uh... hey?" Lance hears Keith say to the kid once he gets within earshot.

"You look kind of like an assassin," the kid says very seriously to Keith.

"...Thanks?"

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

"Rei!" Lance says, popping up and clapping a hand on the kid's shoulder. "Why don't we just go ahead and add that to the list of questions we should probably never ask anyone?"

Rei just salutes him. "Ten-Four."

"Don't take it personally," Lance whispers into Keith's ear when Rei wanders off to chat with another boy camper. "His parents are ex-marines and a little paranoid."

"What?" Keith says, crossing his arms and tilting his chin up in a challenging look. "You don't think I look deadly?"

And Lance feels himself, honest to God, _blush._ He doesn't know what it says about him that he responds to intimidation with arousal, but it probably isn't kosher. "Uh..."

 _"Lance..."_ Kevin, one of Lance's more outspoken campers, comes forward and bangs his head dramatically against Lance's lower back. "This is freaking boring! Can we _go_ now?"

"I don't know, let me think about it... for, like, a really long time."

Lance adopts a thoughtful pose, smirking as all the kids in the vicinity groan.

Keith rolls his eyes. "Let's just go."

All the kids cheer in affirmation, startling Lance's fellow counselor.

"Look at you, Man of the People," Lance says, slapping Keith on the back. "You'll be just fine."

And Lance would swear on Hunk's lava cupcakes that he sees Keith smile a bit as they start making their way up the mountain.

+++

The first hour of the hike goes without incident: the kids are more awake, the air is no longer dewy and cold, and Keith and Lance are guiding campers who are on the younger side, so the trail is a pretty easy one with a gentle slope.  With the exception of booby-trapped, vitamin-harboring protein bars ("Dammit, Hunk!"), things are peachy.

Lance hasn't actually guided on this trail since four years ago when he first started working for Allura, so his memory of how it's supposed to go is rusty but serviceable: he points out all the local fauna (the ones he knows, anyways; and if he makes a few names up, no-one notices except for Keith, who sighs in exasperation at all the appropriate intervals); he makes constant head-counts; and, throughout it all, he guides the kids through the usual camp cheers and songs (his cabin is also apparently full of the loud kids, who make so much noise that the chances of actually running into any animals on this nature hike are absolutely nil).

The only real failure of the venture is Keith's inexplicable inability to follow along with cheers that the ten-year-olds can figure out in ten minutes.

"Seriously," Lance pesters Keith for about the fiftieth time as they bring up the rear of the group. "How did you go your entire life without picking up this skill?"

"Why do you care?" Keith asks, scowling and throwing his hands up in frustration. "It's not like it's even a _useful_ skill."

"Everybody's got a useless skill. Come on: I say 'Camp,' you say-"

"-How about I say 'Shut it before I stuff your face full of bark in front of all these kids?'"

"Okay, so we'll work on it."

The rest of the morning, lunch, and the early afternoon (as well as about a million breaks and pit-stops) passes in a similar vein. It's the second half of the afternoon that gets a little tricky.

"Lance," Pedro says in what could only be described as a stage-whisper, tugging at the straps of Lance's backpack. "I have to go."

Lance shrugs. "So go. I saw you and Mike peeing your names in the leaves, like, two hours ago. You're not shy."

"No," Pedro says and then switches into Spanish, giving Lance the look that kids give adults who are being particularly thick-headed. "I really, really have to _go."_

"Ah," Lance says, getting it. "Si." He looks at the milling campers: they're wandering around the forest clearing with little, colorful books that Allura gave them filled with pictures and descriptions of plants that they're supposed to collect in order to win a prize, which Lance is pretty sure is shiny and electronic and desirable. They don't seem to be paying any attention to anything else. "Hold that thought."

Lance walks over to Keith, who is sitting cross-legged against an oak tree, quietly explaining something to a girl who has her book open between them. When she nods and scampers off, Lance lightly kicks Keith's foot to get his attention.

"Can I help you?" Keith asks, voice flat like the cashier from Hell.

Lance leans up against the tree. "Pedro has to poop. Wanna take him?"

Keith's face looks as horrified as it did during Coran's lice and parasites pep-talk. "Uh, no."

"Okay." Lance shrugs. "But that means you have to hold down the fort for a couple minutes."

Keith's eyes widen a bit, looking out to the chattering kids like he's seeing them for the first time. Then he straightens his spine, turning back to give Lance a defiant look. "I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" Lance says, grinning. "Did you read the handbook on what to do in the event of a group vomit?"

"A group _what?"_

"You see, when one kid vomits, it sets off an inevitable chain reaction of sympathetic vomiters. Kids are great like that. I think I saw Leo looking a little queasy earlier-"

"Oh, my God, just fucking go."

Lance snickers as he leads Pedro into the foliage and away from the main group.

+++

Escorting Pedro takes way longer than Lance would like ("No peeking!" "Pedro, I swear on my mother that seeing you poop is on my list of things I never want to see, ever."). When he and the kid start making their way back up to the group, Lance hears the wild, angry yell of one of their female campers. He immediately goes into panic-mode.

"Woah!" Pedro says as Lance picks him up under one arm like an eighty pound sack of grain and starts hoofing it up the hill. Despite the jokes, Lance was positive that Keith could handle watching the kids for five minutes; the odds of inciting a frenzy were minimal, at best.

Lance bursts back into the clearing, panting and heart thrumming, just in time to see Samsa launch her tiny fist into Keith's open palm.

"From your shoulder, like you mean it," Keith says seriously, and she roars and gives another punch. "Good."

Lance's jaw drops. "Are you teaching them to _fight?"_ he says, placing Pedro back on his feet. There's a line-up of kids in front of Keith, most of the girls positively bouncing at the chance to hit something.

Keith actually grins, cheeks dimpling at the corners. "I only have useful skills."

Lance is completely fucking speechless.

+++

Later, after the kids have all passed out in their tents, Keith and Lance sit quietly around the fire. Lance rubs at a twitching muscle in his shoulder; in retrospect, challenging Keith to a race up the trail while carrying a kid on each of their shoulders may have been a mistake.

Keith surprises Lance by breaking the silence first.

"I don't know how you do this every day," he mutters into the fire, eyes quickly flicking to Lance and then back again, as if he's surprised himself by speaking aloud.

Lance blinks, surprised by the sudden show of doubt; Keith has been doing a pretty good job so far. "Hey, you're getting it." He blows out a tiny burst of flame at the end of the stick he's been fiddling with, tossing it into the fire. "I mean, you'll never possess my personal level of skill, but no-one does. I actually think the kids are kind of drawn to you."

"I don't know. The kind of camp setting I would excel in is probably more _Lord of the flies_ than..." Keith pauses to think, as if he has an easier time recalling dystopian novels than ones with happy endings, "... _By the Shores of Silver Lake."_

Lance files away the fact that Keith reads dirt-old books as an interesting tid-bit worth inspecting at a later date. "What, were you raised by wolverines?" And then he winces when he remembers that Keith was, in fact, a foster kid and probably has no living family. "Sorry, that was a stupid thing to say."

Keith just shrugs, watching the fire with a thoughtful expression. "Don't worry about it. You're not that far off, really."

"What do you mean?"

Keith watches him for a beat and seems to reach some internal conclusion before continuing.  "My old man was a real piece of work. Used to yell until he was literally purple in the face."

Lance has a sickening suspicion that yelling wasn't all that went on in the household. "What happened to him? And your mom?"

"To tell you the truth, I'm not sure... One day, the cops came to pick them up in one car and took me away in another. A few days later I was in the system and I never saw them again." Keith picks up a twig, twirling it deftly in his long pale fingers. "I can guess, of course: there was always money, but no one ever really went to work; drugs were probably involved."

"You never tried to find out what happened to them?"

Keith looks up, eyes boring into Lance's and reflecting the flickering light of the fire. "No. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and move on."

And Lance can understand that, but at the same time he _can't_ because Lance has never had to cut his losses: he's always doggedly held onto anything that even vaguely felt like home, be it Veradera Beach or the sound of Hunk snoring or the way Lake Altea glitters under the stars. Lance loves that feeling of belonging somewhere.

And the way Keith sits, so rigidly and yet calmly across the fire from Lance, as if he doesn't expect to get comfortable and doesn't mind, is suddenly telling; because maybe Keith isn't uncomfortable because he's in a new setting surrounded by wild kids on vacation...

Lance suspects that maybe Keith just doesn't feel comfortable anywhere.

"At least now you have Shiro," Lance points out, trying to steer the conversation into lighter territory. "I know I always tease him about secretly being an escaped Sex Bot, but he's a pretty awesome person. He makes everyone around him want to be better."

Keith smiles a bit at the mention of his foster brother. "Yeah, he does... And I guess you have Hunk. You two are...?" Keith's face flushes as he struggles to make personal chit-chat. He makes a vague swooping motion with the stick in his hand.

"We are... roommates?" Lance provides helpfully. "BFF's? Bros, but from different hoes? D, All of the Above-?"

"I was going to say _together."_

"Woah, what?" Lance asks, surprised. "Hold the phone. What gave you that idea?"

Keith rolls his eyes and turns his face away, the tips of his ears flushed red. "I don't know, Lance, maybe it's the fact that you spend all your time together, he makes you take your vitamins, and he knows pretty much every single thing about you?"

"Okay, first off: Hunk makes _everybody_ take their vitamins; he probably crushed up yours and put it in your tough-guy kale smoothie. Secondly: how do you know he knows everything about me?"

"Maybe it's just something in the way he talks about you."

"Cut the bullshit. I know you were asking him questions about me the first night you were here, so tell me: what gives?"

Keith sighs and glares into the fire, looking like he's about to rip off a particularly cling-y band-aid. "Look, I wasn't trying to be creepy. I just wanted to know if you remembered us sleeping together on New Years three years ago."

Lance watches him for a minute while his brain processes this.

And then for another minute.

"Uh... Lance?" Keith says, actually starting to look a little perturbed by Lance's lack of response.  "Say something?"

Keith jumps a bit when Lance's brain finally stops buffering this insane revelation.

_"That was YOU?!"_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first part of a two chapter flashback to when Keith and Lance first met. It's a long flashback, so I figured I'd go ahead and post. :)
> 
> Thanks for the positive feedback, you guys are fucking awesome!

"I call it None-ville, nectar of the Gods," Krebs said with a grin, stirring the colorful contents of the bathtub with a big plastic spoon shaped like a tyrannosaurus. "It's contents are Everclear, Gatorade, and whatever fruits I can get on sale that won't turn to mush when soaked in booze for forty-eight hours." She wiggled her eyebrows at Lance. "Nice, huh?"

Lance shook his head, impressed. "You're an evil genius, Krebs. But why 'None-ville?'"

"My logic is that, when you drink it, it takes you to a whole 'other place.'" Krebs spread her hands through the air in a rainbow arch. "A place where your cares and fucks are none. None-ville. Or, if you're like me, _Nun_ -ville: a place where attractive and sexually-repressed women are plentiful."

"The world will be blessed when you finally get your psychology degree. Super-size me!"

"Right-oh," Krebs said, ladling the bathtub punch into a red solo and handing it to Lance.

Lance took a sip, feeling all the nerves from his tongue to his scalp stand up in attention. "It tastes kind of like the piss of a unicorn that's been doing acid."

"I'd be lying if I said it doesn't make me proud to hear you say that." Krebs kicked the side of the tub with her tiny sandal-ed foot. "The only thing that could improve the recipe is if I had Lauren Cohan bathe in it."

"Now that I'm officially single again, I can whole-heartedly drink to that," Lance said, and he and Krebs clacked the sides of their solos against one another.

+++

Lance liked to think that, at eighteen years and with six feet of frame, he wasn't so much of a lightweight that thirty-five minutes of chatting with Krebs and sipping her diabolical beverage would get him buzzed; but he couldn't deny that the hallway seemed a little more swerve-y than usual when he stumbled out of the downstairs bathroom to rejoin the party.

He spotted Hunk in the den, chatting animatedly about something mechanical with a fellow engineering major, beer in one hand and gesturing with the other. Sneaking up behind, he gave his friend a gentle poke in his ticklish left side. "Boo."

Hunk jumped with a squeak, beer sloshing. "Lance! What're you doing here?"

"Uh, I was invited?"

"I know that," Hunk said, frowning in that way that usually meant sick puppies or burnt cookies were in the vicinity. "You said you were going to, and I quote, 'Stay home and get your chill on.' The only reason I came out tonight was to give you space.'"

"Which I seriously appreciate, really, but space is depressing. I'm glad I'm not an astronaut, or a... a space alien." Lance sniffed dubiously at his nearly-empty solo. The moment he thought he was used to its flavor, it seemed to evolve. "This stuff is like a chameleon."

Hunk gently plucked his cup from his hand. "I think it's a bad idea to drink Krebs' bathtub booze when you're already down."

Lance scoffed. "I am not _'down,'_ Hunk. What about me could possibly be screaming 'down' to you?" Just to bring the point home, Lance gave Hunk his most winning "Buy war bonds!" smile, complete with a double thumbs-up.

"Yeah..." Hunk said, raising one eyebrow. "I'm gonna go pull my car around. Why don't you go chill on the couch and watch the ball drop for a few minutes?"

"You're not the boss of me," Lance muttered, scowling and turning to do exactly what Hunk said.

A few friends called out to Lance as he made his way through the throngs of people to the living room of Krebs' house, but he couldn't make them out in the noise and chaos, so he didn't stop to chat.  Instead, he stopped at one of the iced tubs in the foyer to grab a beer and looked distractedly up the stairwell; he'd never been to the upstairs of Krebs' house before.

Wandering up the stairs, not really conscious of when he'd made the decision to do so, Lance was proud of himself for managing to open his beer and take a swig in spite of the unsteadiness of the banister and the gentle swaying of the walls; Krebs' parents really needed to hire a contractor.

Selecting the first second-story door he found, it seemed stuck until Lance leaned his full body-weight against it, and then he staggered through with a quiet curse.

And nearly butted heads with the person on the other side.

"Woah." Lance blinked, confused as to why the other guy was dramatically shrouded in darkness. And then he realized that they were both, in fact, outside on some kind of upstairs porch. "Sorry."

Darkness Guy was leaned back, elbows braced against the porch railing behind him, one eyebrow raised. "If you need the bathroom, it's across the hall," he said, tone obviously a dismissal.

Lance snorted and let the door close so that he could lean against it. "I know where the bathrooms are, thanks." Well, the one with the booze, anyway. "My ex-girlfriend's parents own this house."

"I've met the lady of the house, and I'm not sure you mean who you think you do."

"Hey, I dated her back _before_ she knew she was a lesbian."

The other guy smirked, leaning forward a bit, and Lance could see that he was dark-haired, possibly of Asian-decent. "Are you sure her current proclivities have nothing to do with your date-ability?"

"That's demeaning to lesbians," Lance scolded him, poking him in the chest with the neck of his beer bottle. "And I'm totally fucking date-able." He gestured a little too wildly, watching wide-eyed as a stream of fluid flew from the bottle and arced down to the yard below them. He heard a far-off splash and someone cursing.

The guy swiped at the front of his own shirt with one hand, even though he hadn't gotten a drop on him. "I'm really seeing that, right now," he said, sarcastically. "Look, why don't you go hoot with the other frats and leave me the porch?"

Lance rolled his eyes, leaning back to mimic the other guy's posture. "I'm not a frat, asshole. And why don't you go inside?"

"I was here, first."

"Well, I'm not leaving."

"Fine."

_"Fine."_

They glared at one another for a few seconds, locked in some primal, territorial stand-off. Then Lance sagged with a groan, really lacking the energy for confrontation. "Look," he said, sighing. "I'll get out of your hair in a bit. I just need some place to hide until my friend stops trying to take me home."

The guy's prominent eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "Why? Your girlfriend pissed at you, or something?"

"Nah," Lance said, taking a swig from his bottle. "I caught her sucking some other guy's cock in the back of the school library about a week ago, so her being pissed would be, like, _uber_ hypocritical. And home is quiet enough that I sometimes remember that I used to _like_ that bitch."

Other Guy blinked. "Wow. That actually kind-of sucks."

"Thanks. And nice pun."

"Uh, not intended." The guy watched Lance for a beat, seemingly sizing him up. And then he extended his hand, looking somewhat less prickly. "Keith."

"Lance." Lance took Keith's hand, the shake warm and firm. "What brings you to my office at this hour of the night?"

Keith tugged at the fingers of one hand with the other, popping the knuckles in what appeared to be an unconscious gesture. "Are you seriously so drunk that I need to remind you that I was here first?"

"Hey, just humor me. I'm studying to become a child psychologist, and you look like you could use some TLC."

"God help our children." A moment passed where Lance thought that the other guy had locked down the conversation, but then he spoke again: "I'm out here because I hate people."

"Hate seems like a... strong word."

"And an accurate one." Keith looked down at the people wandering around the yard with a frown. To Lance, he seemed more nervous, like a wild animal, than full of hate. "I'm only here because I promised a friend of mine I'd come."

"Friends are a weird thing to have if you hate people. Friends are made of people."

"Thanks, Dr. Oz." Keith leaned forward against the front railing, hands loosely clasped in front of him. "And he's not really 'people.' He's better than that."

"Sounds like you're in love with him, or something," Lance said, downing the last of his beer and setting it carefully on the railing at his side. "I know I make allowances for the people I love. Probably because they usually turn out to be assholes."

Keith's spine snapped straight, turning to glare at Lance. "Shut-up. You don't know anything about it."

"I just calls it like I sees it." Lance spread his hands in a 'What can you do?' gesture. "I'm not judging or anything."

Keith huffed, turning away again from Lance and angrily inspecting his own rough, calloused hands. "We're pretty pathetic, aren't we?" he muttered after a bit, almost as if he didn't expect Lance to hear.

Lance nodded and moved so that he was a few inches to Keith's left side, facing the same direction. "Oh, yeah, absolutely..." He squinted into the darkness and suddenly felt a little daring. "Wanna go back to my place and get wasted?"

Keith stared at him, obviously as surprised at the offer as Lance was at making it. There was a moment when Lance was sure he was going to be kicked from the second story into a crowd of confused, drunken partiers.

"You know what's crazy?" Keith said slowly. "A very, very small part of me is tempted."

Lance grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on the flashback, for those who are interested:
> 
> -Lance, Hunk, and Shiro all attend UCLA  
> -Lance and Krebs' dated back in high school. There are no hard feelings.  
> -Krebs' first name is Miriam.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashback Part 2/2. Enjoy!

"Is this your apartment, or your parents', or...?" Keith asked as Lance flipped through his keys in front of a door in a generic-looking housing complex.

"Me and Hunk's," Lance said, inserting his key and jamming his shoulder up against a door for the second time that night: this particular door always stuck, so he was becoming weirdly accustomed to breaking in like a felon. "He's my roommate... slash best-friend... slash mother-hen. He's probably still at the party."

When the door finally gave (Lance's buzz had dried up on the walk over, so he thankfully didn't face-plant into the next room), he flipped the switch on the fluorescent lights. "Home, sweet home. Sorry if it smells like college kids; I think only students live in this development."

Keith just hummed, wandering in and inspecting the simple, open interior with curiosity. "I've lived in much worse places."

"Really? Like, up north? I mean, don't get me wrong: the cities are awesome. But _man_ , I hate the cold."

"Montréal, actually," Keith said, moving into the spotless kitchen (entirely Hunk's domain) and fiddling with one of the loose, green linoleum tiles on the counter. He quirked his head to the side. "At least, that's where I'm currently living."

"I don't have a map on me, but I'm pretty sure Canada is a long way from California," Lance said over his shoulder, kicking off both sneakers and treading barefoot along the worn, hallway carpet. "Are you here visiting family, or something?"

Keith put his hands in his jacket pockets, following Lance further back into the apartment. "You could say that."

Lance rolled his eyes, opening the door to his bedroom. "You're really working this 'Mystery Guy' motif to death. This is my room, by the way." He stepped aside so that the other teen could enter.

Keith did so with only the mildest hesitation, moving forward into the center of the room and doing a slow spin as he absorbed all the details.

And Lance couldn't help briefly feeling self-conscious, if only briefly; his room was full of the usual stuff you'd find in the room of a (mostly) respectable young adult: piles of shoes and clothing on the floor, an acoustic guitar resting against the wall in the corner, his laptop sitting open on his desk with a tropical fish screensaver that radiated blue on the off-white walls, and a bunch of photos and pictures in frames decorating the dresser.

It wasn't like he had a sex-swing hanging from the middle of the ceiling... not that there was any shame in owning something so _awesome._

"You know..." Keith muttered, sounding surprised and moving to closer inspect the dresser covered in picture frames. "...This is actually pretty inoffensive."

Lance threw his jacket and shoes in the direction of his open closet, flopping down onto his bed with his arms crossed behind his head. "What were you expecting?"

"I don't know. Dirty posters, maybe? Or old pizza stuck to the ceiling?" Keith tapped gently on a photo taped to Lance's mirror. "Is this Hunk?"

Lance squinted at the indicated photo from where he lay, recognizing the capture of his and Hunk's camping trip last year.  "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"There're a lot of him, and some of them look pretty recent," Keith said, as if these were conclusions anyone should be able to draw from looking at a near-stranger's wall.  His eyes flicked curiously across the collage of colors and faces of people he didn't know, seemingly absorbing it all. "And this is your family?"

"Oh, yeah," Lance said, getting up and moving to Keith's side. "My siblings, anyway: Ava, Edward, Lucy, Karen, and Liam." He tapped his finger along the glass as he said each name. "And these two are Karen's kids." He grinned, struck by nostalgia. "They're both huge brats. I love them."

"And this is the Bitch?"

Lance's fingers gingerly lifted the new-ish picture Keith indicated, one of Lance with his arm around a beautiful, dark-skinned girl. "Nah. I mean, yeah, that's _her,_ but she's not a bitch." His thumb moved in a slow graze across the cool plastic of the frame. "It was uncool of me to say that, earlier."

Keith looked skeptical.  "Sucking the cock of a guy she isn't dating is far less cool," he pointed out.

"True, but I also think there was more to it? Karina was weirdly distant, for a while, and sometimes..." Lance pinched the edge of the small frame, slowly twirling it on its corner on the dresser-top. "Sometimes people need an out, but for some reason they're too scared to take the door, so they throw a chair through the window. You feel me?"

"Weirdly enough, I do." Keith crossed his arms, leaning his hip against the side of Lance's dresser. "But fear is no excuse for anything. People have an obligation to others to be up-front."

"Yeah, but as simple as it seems to a few of us, a lot of people don't know how, or they never learned, or... or their parents taught them that it wasn't okay." Keith looked away from Lance's eyes, staring hard at a point on the wall over Lance's left shoulder. "That's why I want to do what I want to do."

Keith met his gaze again, smirking.  "You want to teach people how to use doors?" 

 _"Exactly."_ Lance grinned, pointing a finger at Keith and then back at his own person. "See? You and I? We're on the same frequency, now."

Keith shook his head, still smirking, but there was no hint of disdain in it. "You will probably only hear this once in your life - so savor it - but I'm a little impressed by your wisdom."

Lance opened his mouth to deliver a witty jab - not sure what he was going to say but accepting that it would probably undermine Keith's affirmation of Lance's wisdom - but he didn't get the chance: Keith suddenly pressed the flat of his hand into Lance's chest, pushing him backward onto the bed. Lance bounced once on the mattress, eyes widening, as Keith then straddled his hips, bringing his mouth down onto Lance's.

It was a kiss unlike any other that Lance had experienced before: one, because it was fucking _aggressive,_ teeth grazing at Lance's lips and tongue in a kind of dance just shy of dangerous; and two, because Lance had no clue what he'd done to instigate it in the first place.

Keith snapped into a sitting position, startled, after a few seconds of Lance lying motionless. "Um..." he said, eyes wide and confused. "You're not moving. Why are you not moving?"

Lance cleared his throat. "Uh, I'm not sure. Why are you kissing me?"

"Because we're supposed to, uh-" Keith looked around the room, as if searching for an outside party to explain the scenario. His ears turned bright red. "Is this not what you meant when you asked me back to your place? I admit that I'm not great with these kinds of things, but I was almost positive that this is what you meant."

"I pretty much only say what I mean. My brain-to-mouth filter is kind-of non-existent." Keith's expression turned horrified. "Not that I don't dig it! Now that we're on the same page, feel free to ravage me all you like." Lance carefully rested his palms on Keith's thighs where they still rested by his waist, feeling weirdly like he needed permission to touch the person sitting on top of him.

Keith didn't commence a ravaging; instead, he scrubbed a hand across his face, getting up from Lance's lap and fleeing toward the center of the room, his back to Lance.

Lance jumped up from the bed, body automatically inclined to follow. "Hey," He muttered. Keith was pinching the bridge of his own nose in obvious embarrassment, so Lance gripped Keith's wrist to pull the hand away from his face. "Hey, it's cool..." He then placed both of his hands along Keith's jaw, swallowing in uncertainty...

Keith was attractive, for sure, and even though Lance hadn't been planning to bring a random stranger home for anything more devious than drinking beer and possibly watching _NCIS,_ he was pretty good at rolling with the punches.

Keith's eyes were watching him warily, like maybe he thought Lance was going to _laugh_ at him (and Lance definitely had his flaws, but he was never cruel).  And Lance thought, _'What the hell?'_  

He brought their mouths together.

And since Lance was leading, it was a far slower, more languid kiss than before: Lance nuzzled the soft exterior of Keith's mouth, exploratory rather than forceful. And when Keith moved and parted his lips into something more inviting, Lance canted his head so that he could slowly slide his tongue into that mouth, slotting their lips together more naturally. Keith moaned when Lance bit gently at the flesh of Keith's upper lip, and so he did it again, and then twice more, enjoying the slight vibrating sensation.

It was Lance who finally broke the kiss, gently pressing at Keith's shoulders in an invitation to lie back. Keith raised an eyebrow but complied, kicking off his shoes and sprawling out on Lance's bed like, for all the world, he owned it: one arm was crooked behind his head, the other hand resting on his stomach, and if it weren't for the barely-perceptible flexing of his fingers, Lance would've had no way of knowing that he was at all nervous.

"You know," Lance said, moving to unbuckle his belt.  He'd last had sex about a month ago, but there was a striking newness to this encounter that made his hands a little sluggish and uncertain. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"I'm good," Keith said, rolling his eyes. "I've read the pamphlet on consent.  But I get it if you want to kick me out. I... kind of came on a little strong, there."

Lance shucked his belt but not his jeans, crawling slowly onto the bed until he could slowly lower himself to straddle Keith's thighs. Keith's lower body compulsively arched beneath him, a puff of air bursting from his lips. "S'okay. I like this whole feral bobcat-thing you've got going on," he said.  Lance then made quick work of Keith's belt, the other teen lifting his hips obligingly so that it could be slid from it's loops.

When Lance slid back down Keith's body and curled his fingers around the edges of Keith's jeans to pull them down, he noticed that Keith's stomach was already twitching with small, panted breaths. "Hey... you okay?" he asked, peering up in concern from where his head was positioned above Keith's crotch.

Keith nodded his head tightly, eyes half-lidded and the lines of his jaw tight. "Yeah, absolutely." He didn't look scared or upset to Lance, just... nervous. Which Lance thought was strange, because surely someone as attractive and brooding as Keith would have had his fair share of blow-jobs. "Keep going."

"Aye, Captain," Lance said, tugging Keith's jeans and boxers down to mid-thigh and enjoying the sudden groan it elicited. Keith was lean and lightly muscled, and he still had that teen-aged gangliness that Lance also possessed, but to a far lesser degree. His skin was pale, but uniformly so; and there was something incredibly erotic to Lance about the milky definition of his defined hips when Lance placed his dark fingers against them, trying to hold them down as he took Keith's already-hard cock into his mouth.

And Lance had only ever had one boyfriend, so the sensation of another man's cock resting against his tongue, sliding wetly between his lips, was still a relatively new one, but he wasn't completely inexperienced. And he knew what he liked, which he thought was half the battle: he swirled his tongue around the ridges of the head, occasionally dipping it gently into the slit, and then he brought it back down in attentive swipes along the sides; he alternated this with taking the entirety of the other teen's cock as far into his mouth as far as he could, bobbing his head a bit, and fondling the balls underneath.

He didn't have the skill of some of his girlfriends in the past, he knew, but he thought he could get an A+ for effort.

Keith probably agreed, because he made noises like Lance was _breaking_ him, and if he didn't have one hand clenched in Lance's hair the entire time, obviously egging him on, then Lance would have stopped more than once out of concern.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Keith huffed several minutes into it, eyes locked on where their bodies met. When Lance hummed lightly, knowing that he liked the feel of the vibrations when someone was blowing him, Keith's head fell back against the wall behind him with a dull thunk. _"Fuck."_

Lance pulled his head up, releasing Keith's cock with a slick noise. He then shucked his own pants and boxers, crawling up Keith's body.

"What're you doing?" Keith panted, pupils blown, when Lance settled on top of him.

Lance smirked and rocked his hips once into Keith's, their cocks each rubbing against the other's abdomen. "This. Wanna lose the pants?"

Keith complied in one quick, fluid motion. But when they were both bare from the waist down, he shoved at Lance's side until their positions were reversed and Keith rested on top, hands pressing into the mattress on either side of Lance's head. Lance let him, hands reaching for the back of Keith's head and tangling in his hair as they kissed again, Keith setting a slow rocking pace that made Lance hiss into his mouth.

Keith got his rhythm quickly, seemingly the kind of person who was so comfortable with the mechanics of their own body that physical action just came easy, and it wasn't long until Lance was groaning, long fingers digging into the soft, flexing tissue of Keith's ass.

When Keith came, he buried his teeth into the crook of Lance's shoulder, groaning like a wild animal. And when Lance came, his whole body arched, head falling back as his eyes locked sightlessly on the ceiling above.

+++

"So, I'm thinking..." Lance said later, hands mimicking ships wizzing through the air. He and Keith were sitting on Lance's bed, redressed, and surrounded by crushed, empty beer cans. "...There are these five giant robot-cats, you know? And they sail up into the sky-" Lance made a _fwooosh_ noise, bringing both hands together in a clap "-and form this one huge robotic man with a _sword._ What do you think?"

Keith crushed an empty can against the side of his head, tossing it onto the floor beside the bed. "I'm not gonna lie: I think that sounds unbearably stupid."

Lance just leaned back against the head-board with a smug look. "Kids would love it. You're just jealous that you didn't think of it first."

"That's totally it. How did you know?" Keith asked, sarcastically.

"Easy: I'm starting to get this vibe that you and I are connected, somehow. Like... like Gibbs and DiNozzo; or Romeo and Tybalt. You're Tybalt, obviously."

Keith watched him with one eyebrow raised, popping the tab on another can; he was one of a short list of drunks Lance had met in his life who seemed almost totally sober regardless of the level of alcohol consumption. "I have no idea who the first two are, but if you're thinking there's a chance I'm going to try to kill you one day, then that sounds about right."

"See, you always have something snappy to say, but I can tell I'm starting to thaw this frosty... _thing_ you've got going on," Lance said, kicking one foot up to rest on Keith's knee.

Keith rolled his eyes but didn't push Lance off. Lance actually thought he could see a ghost of a smile. "I guess the part where the robot man had a sword..." Keith muttered, sipping the foam off the top of his can before it leaked onto the bedspread. "That actually sounded kind of cool."

"Ha!  I  _knew_ I was growing on you. Sharing my beer with you hasn't been a total waste, after all."

"Yeah..." Keith said, eyeballing the refuse of their night of drinking. "How the hell do you get all of this? You can't be twenty-one."

"An older friend of mine buys it for me, sometimes. He draws the line at hard liquor, though."

"Are you sure you can trust him? That sounds kind of... illegit."

"Don't worry," Lance assured him, shrugging. "Shiro is true-blue."

He jumped when Keith suddenly choked and sprayed beer over both of them and the bed.

"You alright?" Lance asked, hands raised to ward off more flying beer spit. He swiped the sleeve of his jacket across his own face to dry it.

Keith held up a finger, coughing it out. "Fine," he said hoarsely after a minute, sitting up straight again. "Just inhaled it."

"Yeah, don't do that."

"Thanks, I noticed!"

Lance leaned back against the head-board again, and for a few minutes they fell into a tipsy, thoughtful silence.

"So," Keith started, clearing his throat and avoiding Lance's gaze. "Do you feel better?"

"About what?" Lance asked, genuinely confused.  He'd hooked up with a hot semi-stranger less than two hours ago.  Life was pretty stellar.

"You know..." Keith shrugged. "The bitch? The break-up?"

"Oh. Yeah..." Lance said, scratching his head. "What's funny is I haven't really thought about her much tonight. Do you feel better about your...uh, 'friend?'"

Keith's whole face turned red, and he set his beer carefully down on the floor. "I... yeah. That whole situation is complicated, and I don't..." He cut himself off, shaking his head as if to clear it.  Then he stood slowly and, to his credit, barely swayed. "Look, I should probably head out."

Lance blinked, wondering what he'd said. "Uh, sure. But are you sure you should be walking around?"  He moved up onto his knees, bracing one hand on the foot-railing of the bed. "You could stay over."

"I... no, but thanks." For the first time since Lance had met him, he looked almost _guilty,_ which was strange to see on the face of someone who'd called him an idiot multiple times in one evening. "Really, thank you. For having me over." He moved to stand in front of Lance, obviously unsure as to the protocol of saying goodbye to a casual sex-partner that you met on a balcony.

Lance just held out his hand. "Gimme your phone."

Keith, surprisingly, didn't hesitate. And, in spite the amount of beer swimming in his system, Lance's thumbs nimbly tapped out his number into Keith's contacts.

"There," he said, handing back the phone, which Keith quickly pocketed again. "Send me a text, sometime. We'll toss beer off of Krebs' balcony, again."

"That was just you." Keith's eyes bored a hole into Lance's right knee, but then his lips pressed together as he seemed to reach some kind of internal conclusion. "And... sure.  I'll text you." He reached to grip the back of Lance's neck, pulling him into a quick, firm press of their lips.

And then, suddenly, he was out Lance's bedroom door, Lance still crouched at the foot of the bed.

+++

Lance liked to think that he could drink beer for _days_ with very few unfortunate repercussions, but the next morning brought with it a pounding head and a twitchy gag-reflex. He scowled into his drool-sodden pillow and blamed the None-Ville.

It took him a few seconds to realize that the pounding wasn't just in his head: someone was hammering away at his door at fuck-all o'clock in the morning.

"Lance!" Hunk shouted through his bedroom door. "If you don't unlock this door or shout 'I'm alive!' in the next thirty seconds, then I'm going to call your mom and tell her you're dead."

That got Lance's blood pumping.

"I'm alive!" Lance shouted, voice sounding like a cat that's been smoking for twenty years. "Don't call my mother!" He managed to crack open one eyelid, immediately snapping it shut again when the morning light gleefully assaulted his senses.

"Then open the door!"

"That wasn't part of the deal!"

_"Lance!"_

Lance put both hands under his body and shoved himself to his feet. Eyes still closed, he stumbled over to where he thought his door was, feet kicking a few empty cans.

When his hands fumbled along the wall and located the door knob, he turned the lock, yanking the door open. "...Happy New Year?" he said, squinting at his friend through the doorway.

Hunk's arms were crossed, his expression disappointed in the way of moms and Hunks everywhere. "What the hell happened to you, last night?"

"The None-Ville happened to me, I'm pretty sure." Lance leaned against the door-frame, massaging his temples with both hands. "My mouth tastes like hot-dogs and feet."

"It's no less than what you deserve. You could've at least texted me to let me know you were okay."

"Yeah, I know..." Lance looked up into Hunk's face, sighing. "I know. I'm an ass.  And I'm sorry if I worried you by making you think I was dead or... or kidnapped by tourists."

Hunk's face softened. "Apology accepted." He then peeked over Lance's shoulder and into the room, taking in the intense disarray. "Did you do all that by yourself?" he asked, eyes widening.

"My full mental video of how last night went down is still buffering, sorry," Lance said, turning so he could wander blearily into his ensuite. Hunk followed him, plopping down to sit on the edge of his bed. "Also, you may have to subscribe to the site to get the full version."

"Thanks, but as long as you still have both your kidneys, then I'm fine without it."

Lance ducked his head under the faucet of his bathroom sink, letting the cold water tickle his hairline and the sides of his face. As he held the position for a few beats, he realized that the craned position was killing his neck.

"What the hell?" he muttered, grimacing. He straightened up, damp hair plastered to his scalp, and rubbed at the junction of his neck and left shoulder where it was most painful.

"You okay?" Hunk called from the other room. Lance could hear him playing games on his phone.

"Yeah," Lance called back. He yanked down the collar of his shirt, eyes widening at the enormous purple splotch that was, obviously, a bite-mark.

"...Oh...  _Oh."_


	6. Chapter 6

Lance stares at Keith, brain feebly trying to reconcile the two images flickering back and forth in his neurons like shuffling cards: one, a skinny and intense-looking guy Lance knew for a single drunken night three years ago; the other, an attractive and capable young adult sitting across from him, looking somewhere between concerned and impatient.

It's the impatient look that really brings it all home.

"Uh, Lance?" Keith starts.

"Holy crap," Lance says, a little louder than intended. He looks nervously towards the tents full of sleeping campers and then lowers his voice back down to a whisper. "That was _you."_

"So you remember."

"Yeah, I remember!" He blinks rapidly as a montage of blurry images from that night assail his brain. When they begin to coagulate into various amorphous scenes and memories, he buries his face in both hands, groaning.

Lance doesn't usually get embarrassed (he tends to be a do-or-die, "Be yourself!" kind-of guy), but when he does, it's pretty colossal.

"What's wrong?" Keith demands.

Lance looks back up, shaking his head. "Man, I'm so fucking sorry."

"You're _sorry?"_ Keith reels back in surprise. Whatever response he expected to this big-time reveal, Lance guesses it wasn't an apology. "For what?"

"What do you mean, 'for what?'" Lance is certain that the elephant in the room should be obvious to all: it's fucking pink and dancing the Maringa. "For all of it! For the drunkenness and the rambling and the getting off on you and then saying 'Hey! Text me sometime!' and _then not recognizing you later."_ He groans again. "I was an insensitive asshole, one-hundred percent. Still am, I guess."

"Woah, hold on." Keith shakes his head and holds up one hand as if to say 'Slow your roll.' "I was the one who jumped you first and then never texted."

"Why the hell would you? I was an idiot! Going on about door-metaphors and robot cats and- and just guh!" He throws his hands into the air in agitation. "And I get it now, what I didn't get before."

"Because that makes so much sense." Keith rolls his eyes. "If you could translate, that would be fantastic, because I'm not fluent in word-vomit-"

"That was the first time you'd ever hooked up with anyone, wasn't it?" Lance asks. Keith snaps his mouth shut, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows, and Lance knows his theory is correct. "That's why I'm sorry: it sucks that it was with me. Not for me, obviously," he amends, quickly. "But for you, because I was a dick and didn't get it."

Keith waves off Lance's apology. "Forget it. Really. It's not like I made it clear, or anything. And it was something I just wanted to get out of the way."

"Why?"

The other man shrugs. "Because it's all bullshit, isn't it? Society tells us that certain events have value, but if society actually knew what it was doing then we wouldn't have crime, or poverty, or orphans."

"You were one of those kids who skipped Prom to throw eggs at cars, weren't you?"

"That's beside the point; I'm not wrong."

"Yes, Keith; whatever you say, Keith," Lance says robotically. He's too tired from constant, on-the-clock babysitting to argue with Keith when he's feeling feisty. "But, for what it's worth, I swear that I don't drink like that anymore. And that I'm only, like, fifty percent of an idiot these days."

Keith snorts. "I'll believe it when I see it. And I was a pretty big jerk back then." He then adopts a deadpan expression and tone that Lance suspects is Keith's way of joking. "You might find this shocking, but it's a role I'm having a hard time putting behind me."

"Don't even try to enter this "Biggest Jerk" contest, Keith, I win it every year and I've already dusted off my tiara."

"Well, I'm pretty fucking competitive. And I'd definitely look better than you in a tiara."

Lance just shakes his head, unsure what to do with this uncooperative man sitting in front of him. Doesn't he recognize the rare and beautiful gift that is Lance admitting his own idiocy? Allura would trade lake-front property for such a boon.

"Look..." he says, sighing. "All of this? It's a lot to take on Day Two. Our relationship has suddenly become..." He snaps his fingers and frowns, unsure how to actually describe the relationship of two people who bumbed uglies and then were suddenly forced to co-shaperone a hike for ten year-olds.

"...Discombobulated?" Keith provides. "Convoluted? ...Awkward as hell?"

"Sure, one of those. Anyway, you've got to give me a do-over."

Keith leans back on his log in surprise, peeking nervously over one shoulder at the tents and then looking back to Lance. "Do-over?" he asks lowly, flushing. "Which part?"

"The introductory part, I guess? I feel like drinking a lot of beer and grinding against one another wasn't the best way to establish a 'strong working relationship.'" Lance emphasizes the end of his statement with finger quotes. "There needs to be less beer and frotting, more watching FIFA and shooting the shit. Maybe a bit of armwrestling and bar-fighting, because you seem like the type."

Lance's fellow counselor raises his eyebrows incredulously. "Just so I have this straight... You want to _bond_ with me?"

"Yep, that sounds about right," Lance says, nodding. "Why? What did you think I meant?"

"Nothing!" Keith says quickly. "I thought nothing."

But Lance isn't as oblivious to people's tells as he was three years ago, and, like a dusty light-bulb flickering on in the attic, he gets it. "Oh, did you think I meant-?" He gestures vaguely in the direction of Keith's person and then back at himself. "Oh... Hey, it's not that you weren't awesome, even my spotty memory can confirm that-

"Lance," Keith interjects, looking constipated.

"-And you are definitely... _yeah._.. But with our current job titles, and the location-"

_"Lance."_

"-And the lack of privacy, I just don't think- I mean, I barely know you, not that it mattered _before,_ but I-"

"LANCE," Keith says with impressive volume considering his teeth are clenched together. "Shut up. Now."

Lance gives him two thumbs-up. "No problemo, shutting up. Like, for realsies." He moves his hands palms-down in a flattening motion, finishing in a whisper. _"Silence."_

Keith squints wistfully into the surrounding trees, frowning. "This would be the perfect place to hide the evidence of a murder."

As if on cue, one of the tents suddenly erupts into a chorus of childish squeals, and they both leap up from their seats around the fire.

+++

"So..." Lance says later, crawling into he and Keith's tent. "I finally managed to convince everyone that the vicious python was, in fact, a corn snake."

Keith is sitting cross-legged in the tent, reading by flashlight. He looks up from the enormous, boring-looking book in his lap. "Ah... Good."

"Also, by popular vote, he has been dubbed Cornelius the Corn Snake. Mayeth he be safe on his travels."

"...Okay."

"Also, also: you should be grateful as hell that the snake didn't piss all over that tent," Lance says, flopping onto his back, exhausted. He rubs at his temples. "Or you and I would be sharing this tent with a bunch of ten year-old boys who snore like ex-Navy bartenders."

Keith dog-ears a page, clicking off his flashlight. "You know this from personal experience, I take it?" he asks, obviously sarcastic.

"Oh, yeah, tons," Lance says, ignoring the sarcasm, and Keith stares. "I'm not some Navy prostitute, if that's what your dirty, dirty mind is thinking. My brother Ed was an officer. My family's kind of big, so he and I had to share a room whenever he was home."

"I remember his picture," Keith says, laying back, his right shoulder inches from Lance's left. The tent is small enough that Lance can almost feel the warmth of Keith's body permeating the cool mountain air. "I guess you must miss your family when you're here."

Lance shrugs, even though he's sure Keith can't see it in the darkness. "Yeah, sure, but I've got family here, too. Family's kind of what you make it."

There's a long silence, and Lance starts to think that maybe Keith's fallen asleep. Then, Lance hears him say, quietly, "...I'm starting to learn that."

Lance turns his head to side and sees that Keith has done the same, is watching him with a steady expression. For a moment, there's only the stillness of their bodies, the quiet noises of the forest ticking outside the tent walls. Keith's face is uncharacteristically relaxed, the smooth, pale planes of it radiating a faint glow in the darkness.

"Want to get a drink?" Lance blurts out. He then hastens to explain. "And by 'a drink' I mean, literally, a single drink. A _legal_ one."

Keith gestures to the roof of the tent. "We're in the woods, Lance."

"I mean in two weeks. After the first two weeks of camp, all the counselors go down the mountain for a night, live it up." Lance shrugs again. "You should go with me. It's definitely your turn to buy me a beer."

"Yes," Keith says quickly. He clears his throat, and then says, more slowly, "I mean, yeah. Okay."

"...Awesome. Great."

"Alright."

"Fantastic."

There's a moment of something unspoken, almost heavy, in the air. But then it passes, and, almost in unison, they each turn onto their sides so that they're facing away from one another.

Despite his exhaustion, it takes a long time for Lance's pounding heart to slow down enough for him to sleep. Instead, he spends the next hour listening to Keith breathe and wondering if he's having trouble sleeping, too.

+++

The next morning arrives without the typical ball-tingling chill Lance has come to associate with roughing it: this is not due to a lack of dew-y, precipitous humidity, fogging the air and dampening everything around it until the world is a big, wet ball of discomfort.

Lance's lack of morning shivers is due to the inhumanly-warm body plastered against his back.

"Hunk..." he murmurs, cracking open one eye. "Personal space." He reaches down to push sleepily at the arm wrapped around his waist, but no dice: the muscles in the appendage harden like iron, it's owner murmuring darkly into Lance's shoulder-blades.

In a voice that is _definitely_ not Hunk's.

Lance's eyes snap open.

"Uh..." he rasps, afraid to speak in a normal voice lest he startle the person inexplicably attached to him. He feels like he's got an easily-enraged cat siting in his lap, claws one false maneuver from sinking into his crotch. "Keith?"

Keith doesn't respond, save to give a light snore somewhere in the vicinity of Lance's hairline.

Lance's heart pounds, unsure how to approach an involuntary snuggle with any dignity: it could be that Keith is some aggressive, closeted spooner, prowling back alleyways for the opportunity to force himself upon unwitting victims; Lance was just unlucky enough to be said victim.

But the more likely scenario is that Keith has no idea he's spooning Lance within an inch of his life, and they'll _both_ be really embarrassed when it comes to light.

Lance wants to avoid that conversation, if possible (he's had enough awkward conversations for one camping trip), so he carefully wraps his hand around Keith's pale, angular wrist, and begins subtly prying the other guy off of him.

Or not. Even asleep, Keith is fucking _strong_ \- shockingly so, for his lean frame - and subtlety quickly goes out the window. After a few seconds of futile tugging, Lance starts all but crowbar-ing Keith off of him, tugging on the arm trapping him with all the effort of dead-lifting Pedro up the mountain. Keith, meanwhile, sleeps on, like Lance isn't desperately trying to escape from a human cage made by his body.

When Lance finally lifts Keith's arm high enough enough for him to escape, he wiggles free, quickly stuffing a pillow in his place. Keith immediately curls around it, eyebrows scrunched together in a frown.

Lance frowns too, not liking the look on the other guy's face. He gently presses one fingertip to the space between Keith's brows, and, to Lance's surprise, Keith's face relaxes, the tension immediately draining away from the point of contact. Lance watches him for a few moments, a strange feeling curling in his chest, before he realizes that now _he's_ being the creepy one.

He flees the tent, the excuse of needing to check on campers fueling his departure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, you guys have written some amazing and beautiful comments for this fic, and I'm just blown away. Thank you! :)


	7. Chapter 7

"Mariani, I don't want to be a stick in the mud like Shiro," Lance says, waving a tiny purple sneaker in each hand. "But I really need you to put on your shoes. Tetanus is a thing."

The small, barefoot girl puffs out her chest, dark braid swinging energetically behind her. "But I want to be like Kali from _Teen Wolf!"_   She kicks one foot into the air in a roundhouse that's actually pretty impressive. "She _never_ wears shoes. If I want to be like that in ten years, then I need to get started."

Lance feels his eyebrows raise. "Your parents let you watch _Teen Wolf?"_ He then shakes his head, trying to get his brain back on track. "Actually, that doesn't matter. I don't want to harsh on your self-expression, but walking barefoot through the woods for ten miles is jumping in a little too deep, kiddo. Also, it'll get me fired."

Mariani frowns at the shoes in Lance's hands. "Would you consider a trade?" she asks, raising a sly brow.

Lance pretends to think about it, tapping one shoe against his chin. "Hey, let me think about that... uh, no."

"Awww, come on! I'll wear my shoes if you carry my backpack; it makes it hard to kick when I wear it."

"It's full of rocks, isn't it?"

"Nope!" Mariani says, holding up a small, plastic _My Little Pony_ backpack with a grin. "Deal?"

Lance rolls his eyes, but he can't help but grin: her smile is infectious. "Deal." He lightly tosses the shoes to her, and she catches one in each hand like a fucking ninja. "Go nuts."

She scampers off, shoes still in hand rather than on her feet, when Keith finally emerges from their tent on the other side of the campsite, shuffling like an extra from _The Walking Dead._   After a few seconds of looking hungover and staring vacantly at the world around him, he wanders through the loud, milling kids to where Lance is standing by the supplies and strapping the small backpack onto his own, larger pack.

When Keith gets close enough to squint at the colorful, equine addition to Lance's gear, he raises an eyebrow. "Is there not a single time during the day when you act normal?" he asks.

"Whoa, don't judge. Applejack could kick your ass three ways from Sunday." Lance raises an eyebrow and slings his pack over one shoulder. "And nice of you to get your useless lump up, Rambo, after I've already rounded up the natives. For all you knew, they could've gone savage and usurped us."

Keith shrugs. "I'm just amazed that you know what 'usurped' means," he says, plopping down on top of a nearby stump and still looking disoriented. "And it wasn't intentional. I just..."

"'You just what?" Lance asks when Keith doesn't continue on his own.

Keith shakes his head and begins pulling his dark hair back with a rubber band. "I _slept."_

"Believe me, I noticed." Lance begins to round up all the tiny bits of crap that you can't really run around in the woods without, like compasses and band-aids with dinosaurs on them. "It's nothing to write your grandma Lois about."

"But I don't really sleep. It's... kind of an on-going issue."

This is definitely news to Lance. He grabs an apple from the food bag and tosses it to Keith to hide his surprise. "I'll be the first to admit that I spent the entirety of Freshman biology tossing notes to Celia Palmer," he says, leaning back on one foot with his arms crossed. "But even I know that people need sleep in order to, you know, not be dead."

Keith grunts and takes a bite of his apple with probably the most absurdly and unintentionally attractive execution Lance has ever witnessed, like an X-rated ad for locally-grown produce; he waits until he swallows to continue, because _of course_ Keith doesn't talk with his mouth full, not even in the freaking woods. "Let me specify," he says. "I don't sleep _much._ And definitely not like I did last night." He frowns thoughtfully at the ground between his feet, green skin of the apple dimpling under his clenched fingers. "Maybe it's being in the mountains, or something?"

 _"Or something,"_ Lance mutters. He fiddles with a bag of juice boxes, back to Keith and hoping his face doesn't give anything away.

Because Lance's pretty sure that he's the only one aware of his and Keith's little spooning session earlier that morning (which somehow makes him more uncomfortable than the knowledge of them hooking up Once Upon A Time). And he has a feeling that nothing good can come from sharing this little nugget of personal info.

Oh, God. Hunk can never know...

"Hey..." Lance says when Keith tosses his apple core into the nearby foliage. "I love Bambi and all, but I say you and me get these animals back down the mountain. I need a fucking candy bar and a _shower."_

"Amen."

"Hey, look at us actually agreeing on something!"

Keith snorts, tugging a ball-cap down onto his head. "I wouldn't get too used to it," he says.

Lance whips out his phone, lightning-fast, like a gunslinger in an old western film. "Then I'll just have to preserve the moment."

"Lance..." Keith says in a warning tone.  "If you take any pictures of me looking like this-" his eyes narrow when Lance takes a predatory step toward him "-then I will be forced to drown you and your phone in the next shallow mud puddle I see."

Uncowed, Lance crouches down next to the other man, positioning his phone so that he and Keith are properly framed on the screen. "Hey, if life _actually_ stopped every time I was threatened with death, then I never would've made it past sixth grade." He puts on his best selfie smolder. "Say 'Grumpy Cat!'"

"Lance, I swear-" Keith cuts himself off with a snarl at the unmistakable snapshot-sounds of Lance taking several pictures. "Murder _._ Murder and death."

"You're so articulate in the morning. All those big, brain-y books, I guess."

 _"Pain._ Lots and lots of pain."

Lance just stands and carefully tucks his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. Then he throws Keith one of the packs and, after a moment's internal hesitation, grins and extends his hand.

Keith scowls but takes it in a crushing grip, letting Lance pull him to his feet.

+++

Later on the trail, when all the feeling has finally returned to Lance's fingers, Keith quietly clears his throat to Lance's left.

Lance turns to him expectantly, their footsteps in sync as they tread down the mountain behind a slew of chattering campers. When a couple seconds pass without Keith actually saying anything else, he raises an eyebrow. "Lozenge?"

Keith rolls his eyes. "No, asshole, give me a minute." He huffs out a sigh, cheeks briefly billowing like balloons Lance would love to poke. "I'm not good at this..."

"...Being nice?" Lance can't help but throw out there in an attempt to be helpful. "I noticed. But I kind of like your bad attitude-"

 _"No,_ Lance. I was trying to apologize, actually." Keith tilts his head meaningfully, lowering his voice so the kids won't overhear. "...For 'You Know What.'"

Lance squints at him, not sure which incident to which Keith is referring but hoping it isn't their early-morning spoon-fest (he has very mixed feelings about the event, none of which have been processed. Nor does he intend to process them. Ever). "For sleeping in?" he eventually asks, also speaking lowly. "Hey, it's really no big deal: I'm old-hat at getting the troops to muster. All I had to do was shout 'Poptarts!' and they burst out of the tents like a swarm of bees-"

"I meant for three years ago," Keith interrupts, and Lance shuts up. "I talked big about being upfront, but I used you and then never contacted you again, even though I said I would." He gives Lance the full-on Serious Brows. "It was shitty."

Lance feels kind-of warm with some undefinable emotion, but he pretends to nod solemnly. "Well, if it's something you feel like you have to do, then be my guest."

Keith opens his mouth like he's going to say the next line in what should be a fairly predictable script, but then he blinks, obviously thrown. "What?"

"Go ahead: apologize," Lance says, pressing his lips together in a desperate attempt to keep a straight face. He thinks his eyes will probably start to water from the strain. "You haven't technically done it, yet. All you've said is that what you did was shitty." 

Keith gapes at him. "Oh, my God. Do you really have to ruin _every_ serious moment?"

"Hey, I'm just being supportive. Would it help if you got down on your knees and groveled a bit? Just throwing the suggestion out there-"

The kids gasp and swarm around them when Keith throws an arm around Lance's neck and pulls him into a headlock worthy of a spandex-clad wrestler. Lance can hear them shouting _"Fight! Fight! Fight!"_ as both counselors struggle and tip into a nearby bush; two-dozen kids then proceed to throw themselves on top of him and Keith like some kind-of _World War Z_ doggy-pile.

Despite the barbs digging into his ass, the arm around his throat, and what feels like a million pounds of unnecessary weight pushing him face-first into the dirt, Lance laughs harder than he has in a long time.

+++

When Keith and Lance stumble into the Compound an hour later, sore and irritable and with bits of nature still stuck to various parts of their anatomy (Lance is pretty sure he looks like he was physically assaulted by a nature spirit), they're both pretty much _Done_ with the outdoors. Done with a capital "D."

The kids are fucking _amped,_ though. "Lance!" Mariani says, accepting her backpack from Lance and pulling it around her own, small shoulders. "Can we do the hike again next week?"

 _"No!"_ Keith and Lance both answer in unison.

"Then can we all pretend to attack you again?"

"No," Lance says, and then he glares at Keith until the other man shrugs and halfheartedly shakes his head at the girl.

When Mariani starts to pout, Lance boops her on the nose. "Hey... Why don't you go tell Allura we're back? And tell her that we only lost a couple campers over the cliffs. She'll be _stoked."_

"Okay!" She dashes off, long braid swinging wildly behind her.

Keith watches her go for a beat, eyes narrowed. "Is she not wearing any shoes?"

 _"What?"_ Lance squints after her, too, hands cupped over his eyes to block the sun, and he gets visual confirmation that Keith is correct. "Dammit! Deal-breaker!" He shouts the last bit, shaking his fist in the air.

"A-plus parenting, Lance."

"Well, it's not like we can do anything about it, now." Lance huffs, clapping a hand on Keith's shoulder, bits of leaf-y detritus flaking off the other man's shirt. "Let's roll, Gibbs."

"...I still have no idea who that is."

+++

Between getting the kids settled again, showering, shaving (and maybe primping and moisturizing a little bit more than absolutely necessary, for reasons he doesn't want to face), Lance doesn't see Keith again until dinner.

A very, very weird dinner: Keith and Lance are seated side-by-side at the staff table, but, for whatever reason, the comfort and familiarity of that morning doesn't translate well into more public surroundings.  More than once, Lance finds himself watching Keith out of the corner of his eye, ready to make some comment or joke or just be a pest, only to realize that now they have an _audience_ (an audience of people Lance knows and likes and isn't sure he wants to know the intricacies of his poor life-choices; not that Keith is a bad choice by any stretch, but one-night stands never look good on the Resume of Life).  If he and Keith were more isolated, then Lance is sure things would be easy again because, despite how few hours they've actually logged into their friendship, Keith and Lance have intimacy in the _bag_ (in fact, they got it out of the way three years ago). It's when things are outside the bedroom or the tent that there's suddenly this weird _tension_ in the air.

And it doesn't help that every time Lance asks someone to pass the gravy boat, he feels like he's shouting "I slept with Keith!" at the top of his lungs. It has to be practically written on his face in Sharpie marker to anyone who knows him well enough.

Which is probably why Hunk has been giving him the hairy _"Tell me what you aren't telling me, you little punk"_ eyeball for the entire meal.

"Okay, something's going on," Pidge says into a particularly long stretch of silence, scowling. "Why am I always the one who gets left out of all the camp drama?"

"Because you're the smartest of the bunch, Pidge," Shiro says, delicately stirring Sucanat into what looks like tea (Lance suspects that it's actually some ancient, dried mucus harvested from the nostrils of a celestial dragon and then added to hot water; there are only so many explanations for why Shiro is as perfect as he is). "And I don't think there's any real drama; everyone's just beat."

Allura sighs, resting her elbows on the oak table so she can steeple her fingers. "It's only the third day. We can't afford to be tired, just yet." Everyone else at the table groans. "It's true! I need you lazy lumps at the top of your game for the next eight weeks."

"Chill, Allura." Lance crosses his arms and leans back on the hind legs of his chair. "The kids are having a blast. Even Keith hasn't fucked anything up, yet." He peeks into his periphery in time to see Keith roll his eyes, and Lance thinks _Aha! Familiar territory..._

"Lance is right," Shiro says. Lance winks at him across the table. "I know this is your father's camp, Allura, and that you want it to succeed, but over-worrying isn't going to help anything."

Allura sags a bit. "I know... and I'm sorry, everyone." She drags the fingers of one hand through her long, thick hair. "I just can't shake this feeling that something bad is going to happen this year..."

"Not likely," Pidge cuts in. "The majority of the campers have survived an entire day in the lake, a ten-mile hike through the woods, and Hunk's gelatin surprise. If we haven't killed them yet, then the odds of us doing so in the future are optimistically low.

"Woah," Hunk scolds, leveling a spoon in Pidge's direction. "Don't knock the gelatin surprise. It's shining, green heritage predates your birth."

"I'm not knocking it; I'm just questioning the physics of its existence. How in the world do you get the cauliflower to float in it like that?"

"That's a family secret."

"Seriously, don't ask," Lance mutters to Keith out of the corner of his mouth. "It's the only secret he's ever kept."

Keith smirks. "I'll keep that in mind."

And there it is again: the comfortable combativeness, the familiar newness. Lance's eyes are locked on Keith's face for probably a split-second too long to be Kosher, but Keith doesn't break the stare-off either, so what the hell? Keith has a great face. Lance should be allowed to appreciate it... non-sexually.

Too late, Lance notices that Hunk is watching their interaction with a raised eyebrow, eyes flicking from Lance to Keith, and then back again. Then (and for the first time in his life, Lance wishes his platonic soulmate didn't know him so goddamn _well_ ) two puzzle pieces seem to click together behind Hunk's eyes, making the big man's jaw go slack in realization.

Lance quickly kicks him in the shin underneath the table.

"What?" Pidge asks, alarmed, when Hunk yelps in pain. "What is it?"

"Nothing!" Hunk waves his hands nervously as if to ward off the question. "It's just that the lack of love for my gelatin surprise suddenly got to me." He winces and reaches down, probably to rub at his leg. "In my calf-region, specifically."

Pidge sighs, looking guilty. "It's like I said before, Hunk: I just need some scientific explanation for it before I'm willing to eat it."

Hunk pats Pidge on the shoulder.  "Don't worry about it. There's actually a lot of explaining that needs to happen around here," he mutters darkly, but he's not looking at Pidge: he's glaring across the table at Keith and Lance.

Lance hunkers down in his seat.


	8. Chapter 8

After dinner, Lance and Hunk find themselves seated on the edge of the swimming dock: it's about an hour past sunset, so there are neither counselors nor campers to overhear their conversation, but it's also a high-humidity evening, which means there are also no stars to cut through the darkness.

Hunk creatively combats the utter blackness of the evening with a small plastic "mining helmet" he pilfered from the camp store, perched precariously on his too-large head; when he turns to look at Lance, the small, smiley-face shaped headlamp flashes energetically, having the added effect of making Lance feel like he's being interrogated by the Lollipop Guild.

"Tell me what's going on with you and the new guy," Hunk says in a tone of voice that has gotten Lance to spill his guts on more than one dramatic occasion: it's just the right combination of demanding and guilt-inducing. 

This doesn't mean that Lance won't try to resist it for as long as he can, of course: he's a glutton for lost causes.

"Nothing is going on with me and Keith," Lance says, kicking his feet so that they skim the cool surface of the lake. "Scout's honor." He tries to give his best imitation of a scout salute.

Hunk gives him a distinctly unimpressed look. "That's the Ta'al from _Star trek,"_  he says.

"Really?" Lance says, blinking innocently at his own hand. "Huh... I guess I need a refresher course in the earlier seasons."

Hunk wags a finger at him, unswayed by this obvious diversion. "Don't try to distract me with the prospect of binge-watching _The Original Series,_ okay? We're having a serious discussion."

"There's nothing to discuss, because there's nothing going on between me and Keith, Hunk."

"Really?" Hunk shakes his head, unconvinced. "Because my Spidey-Senses are hardcore telling me that there's sex involved, but the only place you two could've gone at it is up on the trail." Hunk's eyes then widen at the implications of what he's just said. "Please, _please_ tell me that you two didn't hook up on the trail," he begs.

Lance gapes at him, horrified. _"No!_ What do you take me for? I would never have sex in a place where I thought a _kid_ could potentially walk in on me."

"Right, right," Hunk says, reaching up to rub at his eyes tiredly. "I don't know what I was thinking. Sorry."

Lance pats his friend on the shoulder. "It's cool. Besides: you're not _entirely_ wrong. Keith and I did hook up, but it happened a long time ago..." And Lance can't help grinning sheepishly. "...Three years ago, to be exact-ish."

At this, Hunk turns to stare at him, jaw dropping as the gears visibly grind in his head. "That was _Keith?"_ he finally blurts out. Lance glances nervously around them and makes a shushing gesture, but Hunk doesn't lower his voice. _"He's_ your drunken rebound from Freshman year?"

"Shhhhh, yes, okay?" Lance hisses. "Could you scream it louder, please? I don't think my parents heard you back in California."

"Wow," Hunk says, turning back to watch the lake. "Wow, wow, wow..."

Lance leans back on his hands, frowning. "Why is that so shocking?"

After a brief, contemplative silence, Hunk shrugs. "...I mean, it's not, really? You definitely have a type."

Lance ponders that for a beat, wondering if he should feel offended or not. "Athletic?" he eventually provides, tone optimistic. "Brooding? ...80's hairstyle?"

Hunk shakes his head solemnly.  "I was going to say 'Broken.'" And Lance immediately bristles at the prospect of anyone calling Keith _broken,_ even Hunk, but Hunk firmly raises a hand to cut off his reaction. "You know I didn't mean that in a cruel way."

Lance sighs and feels his irritation dissipate as quickly as it came, because it's an undeniable truth that there isn't a mean bone in Hunk's entire, cuddly body. "I know..." he says. "But hey: I think he's got his shit together these days, so he's not nearly fucked-up enough for me to make the mistake of trying to date him. Not that the idea even crossed my mind," he quickly adds.

Hunk just hums thoughtfully.

Lance turns to watch his friend, not sure he trusts the sound of that hum. "What are you thinking?" he asks, wary.

"I'm thinking..." Hunk says slowly. "...That maybe the idea _should_ cross your mind."

...What?

"What?" Lance says out loud. "You just said he's broken!"

"I said you have a type. Looking at him, I can tell there's definitely some bad stuff in his past, but..." Hunk shrugs. "I don't know. He's also got this Zen-thing going on."

"We've both only technically known this guy for less than a week," Lance says flatly. "And now you're endorsing me to try and date him?"

 _"You're_ the one who hooked up with him.  I'm just saying you should go have coffee."

Lance feels his face burn and picks at a stray fiber in his jeans to hide it.  "Well," he says, clearing his throat.  "I did technically rope him into buying me a beer in two weeks."  When Lance looks up again, Hunk is giving him a knowing-look.  "Stop looking at me in that tone of voice."

"Hey, I know I've only really talked to him once, but so far I actually _like_ Keith. That's more than I can say about any of the other people you've dated." Hunk makes a face like he's just sucked on a lemon. "Maybe you should start trusting my guns on this topic instead of your own; your romantic instincts tend to have me picking you up in the middle of the night in varying states of undress and intoxication."

"Which I still really appreciate, but I have to remind you that that only happened  _once,"_ Lance points out. He leans forward so he can rest his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands between them. "And I'm almost positive Keith is already into someone else."

Hunk blinks, Spidey-Senses obviously failing to provide this little detail. "What? Who?"

Lance shrugs, watching the silver light refracting off the lake as it gently churns beneath them, black and mysterious; he's always liked the infinite mystery of water, like there's always something left to discover, something he can't always see but can sense, somehow. "I don't know. This may shock you, but we're still in the "Barely Getting Along" stage of our working-relationship. I haven't yet been given the privilege of braiding his hair while he tells me about his crushes."

"How do you know he's into someone else, then?"

Lance scowls, because why are they even discussing this? What does it matter? "He pretty much told me when we met, three years ago. It was part of the incentive for hooking up, I think."

"Well, a lot can change in three years," Hunk says mildly.

"Yeah, like marriage."

"You could ask Shiro."

Lance straightens up and stares at his friend, certain that Hunk has lost his marbles. "Ask Shiro _what?"_

"Ask him if Keith is dating anyone, right now," Hunk says, frowning like this train of thought should be obvious. "He'd know."

Lance flounders for a bit, brain short-circuiting at the thought. "First off," he says, ticking off his points on one hand, "I would have to care if Keith's dating anyone, which I _don't._ Secondly, that is a gross violation of Keith's privacy."

"I prefer to think of it as being an investigator for the sake of the greater good."

"Yeah, well..." Lance sighs, suddenly tired. "Not all of us are such good people that we can get away with that kind of stuff."

"'That kind of stuff?' Like pushing someone off of a dock?"

Lance blinks at him. "Huh?"

"This is for kicking me, earlier." Hunk grins apologetically and then proceeds to shove at Lance's shoulder just hard enough to topple him into the lake.

When Lance emerges from the water, surprised and sputtering, Hunk has a towel for him. Because Hunk is just a good friend like that.

+++

The next few days are so swamped with activities and obligations that Lance feels like he barely has a chance to _breathe_  let alone ponder Hunk's wild notions concerning Lance's love-life (wild notions that Hunk is uncharacteristically keeping to himself, if the lack of sudden camp-wide knowledge concerning his and Keith's previous sexual history is anything to go by). And it helps that Keith is equally busy and -with the staff so limited- rarely doing the same stuff as Lance; for the rest of that week, they see one another like ships passing in the night, their usual bickering somewhat diluted by the fatigue of their hectic schedules.

Lance is both cool and not cool with this: on the one hand, the last thing he needs to do is water the seed of insanity Hunk planted in his brain that night on the dock; on the other hand, there's a small part of Lance that wishes he and Keith could lead more activities together, if only because the ratings are never as good as when Gibbs and DiNozzo are _both_ in the episode.

They owe it to the imaginary fans, really.

"Lance? Are you listening?" Pidge asks, snapping tiny pale fingers in front of Lance's face. Lance is, unfortunately, filling a shift in the camp store (the one job he _hates_ and that Allura swore she would never, ever make him do again, for the sake of the Camp, at least).

Lance blinks, crashing back to reality. "Huh?" he says. "Oh... sorry. Nodded off."

"Pay attention."

"Aye, wee Captain."

"Sooo, every button on the touchscreen has a corresponding charge amount, and every charge amount is specific to the item that is pictured on the screen," Pidge says slowly, gesturing to the high-tech register that's been recently installed at the store counter. "I made it as simple to use as possible."

"Uh-huh," Lance says distractedly, peering at the hundreds of tiny, cartoon-looking images displayed electronically in front of him. Just being in a corporate-ish setting makes him want to do a full-on, _Exorcist_ head-spin. "Do we really sell pineapples?"

Pidge flushes. "That's a yellow backpack."

"Oh. Hey, did you hand-draw these and upload them? Because some of them are pretty good."

"...Maybe. Look, do you want me to go over it again, because I-"

"Pidge." Lance claps his small friend on the head. "Stop worrying and enjoy your afternoon off. Go Skype your girlfriend... or take selfies with your Starbucks... or whatever it is you young, wild teens do these days."

Pidge raises an eyebrow, expression radiating suspicion. "I'm pretty sure the nearest Starbucks is about sixty miles from here. And, FYI, you're going to throw off the whole system if you-"

"It'll be _fine._ 'Find the picture; Push the button.' Gotcha." And just because he's curious and the screen is facing him and not Pidge, he flips down a few pages to a random image. "What's thirty-five down, twenty-two across?" he asks, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

"A stuffed panda," Pidge says immediately, looking smug.

"How do you _do_ that?" Lance says, shaking his head.  "I can't even remember what I had for breakfast this morning."

"Oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar."

"That's witchcraft, I swear."

When Pidge finally starts to leave the alcove of the store a few minutes later, Lance calls out again: "What's item two-hundred and nineteen?"

"Rainbow socks!" Pidge yells without looking back.

Man... Lance's life would be so much easier if he had a memory like Pidge's.

+++

Later (exactly twenty minutes and thirty-two seconds, according to the Mickey Mouse clock on the wall), Lance is _bored._

Which he knew would happen, but still: it's not like anyone _buys_ anything at the camp store, so why do they even pay people to attend it? He can't help but wish that the little cabin he's standing in right now -full of outdated merchandise probably hailing back from when Lance's parents were young- had just burned down in the Flaming Arrow Incident last year, like Coran's office.

"Boooo," Lance says in quiet protest to an empty room, unwrapping a Tootsie-Roll Pop and sticking it in one cheek. "Hissss..."

"Having fun?" Lance turns to see Shiro moving toward him from the back entrance, two bottles of water gripped in his hand and an amused expression on his face.

"Shiro!" Lance says, relieved and not caring if he seems over-eager. "Thank God you're here."

"What's funny..." Shiro says, looking even more amused and setting both bottles on the counter with a quiet  _click._ "...is you're actually not the first person to say that to me today."

"Really? Someone else got stuck in a box with no one to talk to but a shelf full of Furbies?"

"Not exactly." Shiro shrugs the shoulder whose sleeve isn't empty and pinned to the side. "There was a bit of a personal crisis this morning: Keith got a love-letter."

Lance suddenly feels like he did after watching nothing but _Twin Peaks_ for an entire weekend: nauseous and unsettled.  "He got a what?" he asks, jaw dropping and lollipop toppling out.

Without batting an eyelash, Shiro deftly catches the stem and and sticks the candy-end back in Lance's mouth, because he's a helpful person like that. "A love-letter," he repeats, patiently.

"From _who?"_

Shiro grins mysteriously, like he's part of some secret, one-man joke. "She swore me to a lifetime of secrecy, but I can tell you that it was one of our younger campers."

"Oh..." Lance says. "Right. I figured that was it."

"Of course you did. Anyway, he was a bit panicky when he found the letter in his mailbox this morning, so I went and explained to the girl that it probably wasn't going to work out between them."

"How did she take it?"

Shiro tilts his head in a "so-so" gesture. "Pretty well: kids are tough."

"Yeah, they are," Lance affirms with a nod, fiddling with flipping through all the tiny, smiling pictures of inanimate objects on the register screen.  He feels a sudden bout of heartburn coming on, which he usually only gets when he eats cantaloupe. Weird.

Shiro is watching him quietly. "You know..." he says after a few beats, and Lance looks back up in time to see Shiro give him a sly look. "...When I was talking to her, I told her something that I told someone else a long time ago."

Lance blinks at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Shiro leans one hip against the counter. "I told her that, sometimes, a person can confuse feelings of gratitude and affection with romantic love, and that maybe she will come to see Keith as more of an older brother one day."

Lance nods, squinting curiously at the man in front of him. Shiro is talking to him in a weirdly significant tone of voice that he tends to use when distributing Life-Lessons, but Lance has no clue what the underlying meaning is supposed to be. "Uh-huh..."

"I also told her," Shiro continues, undeterred by Lance's obliviousness, "That she needs to find someone more her own age." He then pauses, as if waiting for Lance to give a very specific response.

But Lance is confused. "...Sounds like legit advice to me?"

"Lance..." Shiro rolls his eyes like Lance is being purposely obtuse. "Are you focusing on what I'm saying?"

"Totally! But why are you talking like my aunt Sofia when she freelances as a phone-psychic?"

Shiro sighs and shakes his head, but his expression is fond. "On second thought? Don't worry about it," he says, tapping gently on the bill of Lance's hat so it falls down over Lance's face. When Lance pushes it up again, it's just in time to see Shiro ring himself up on the register with a few lightning-quick taps. "I didn't come here just to chat and buy drinks: I need you to cover my activity tonight."

Lance groans. He was planning to do what any respectable person in their early twenties does on a Saturday night: go to bed at eight. "Okay. But please tell me it isn't teaching kids how to bench-press watermelons."

"Actually, I'm supposed to co-chaperone the Saturday-night movie with Keith."

"Oh," Lance says, suddenly feeling a lot less bored and sleepy. "That's cool, I guess."

"I thought you'd be fine with it," Shiro says smirking, his tone significant again (Man, Lance has a good idea where Keith learned his lessons in being Vague-As-Fuck). He starts to move toward the store exit. "Don't burn the place down!" he calls out as the tiny bell at the top of the door serenades his departure.

And Lance is alone again. With his thoughts.

Fuck... The cantaloupe heart-burn is back.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, many, many, gratuitously grateful thanks to all the sweet comments for this fic. You guys are incredible. Also: there won't be as great a gap between this chapter and the next. I hope to post chapter ten in the next couple of days or so.
> 
> Enjoy! <3

When the end of what is perhaps the most mind-numbing-ly pointless hour of Lance's life finally arrives, he springs out of the store like a possessed jack from its box (he'll never forget the sweet, sweet taste of freedom again). And the fact that he's on his way to spend his evening with a surly, mullet-ed Canadian has absolutely nothing to do with the blood suddenly and vigorously pumping throughout his circulatory system. Like, at all.

Although: he can't resist checking his reflection in the store window as he locks the door, making sure that his teeth are clean and that his hair isn't too wildly sticking out of his hat, because it's for everyone's benefit that Lance look his best, really (again, it has nothing to do with Keith). When he gets within sight of the Camp barn, he also breathes into his cupped hand, verifying that his breath isn't at all foul; he then surreptitiously sniffs his left armpit, frowning, and wonders if it's too late to change his shirt...

"Hey, Lance," Hunk says cheerfully, seemingly popping out of nowhere and startling Lance out of his self-perusal. He throws one arm over Lance's shoulders, carrying an enormous tub of buttery-smelling popcorn in the other. "Weird, huh? Running into you like this."

Lance frowns at him, confused. "How, exactly, is it weird? We've only worked here for about ten thousand years." He automatically shortens his long strides to match that of his slightly shorter, much more muscular friend. "Did you hit your head on the spice shelf again?"

Hunk shrugs, a little too innocently, and ignores Lance's last question. "Wow, that's great. Hey, you didn't happen to bump into Shiro at the store, did you? He mentioned he was going to stop by."

Lance hums, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the tub. "Yeppers," he says around a mouthful. "He bought two bottles of water and got lost in his memories, again."

"Really?" Hunk seems strangely invested in what Lance considers to have been an epically boring afternoon. "You guys talk about anything _specifically?"_

"Hard to say," Lance says slowly, feeling like he's being tested for some reason. "But you know Shiro: he was doing his wise old man on a mountaintop routine, and everything he said made as much sense as watching out-of-context clips from _The Karate Kid."_ He moves one hand in a circular motion. "Wax on, wax off."

Hunk groans, shoving the tub with unnecessary force into Lance's chest. They've arrived at the barn-slash-theater. "What are we going to do with you, Lance?"

"Love me forever?" Lance says in a small voice, even more confused. What the hell is _wrong_ with everyone today? "Never leave me?"

"Just pass the popcorn around," Hunk mutters, stomping off in the direction of the cabins.

Lance watches him go for a moment, tossing fistfuls of popcorn into his mouth and hoping the body snatchers don't get him, too.

+++

Stepping inside the old camp barn, Lance gives a low whistle, because Pidge has really worked some magic in the place: there are strings of small lanterns hanging directly from the raftered ceiling; the kids (many clad in PJ's and toting their favorite pillows, as it's the only night of the week they're permitted to stay up past ten) are seated and playing cards in front of the back wall of the barn, which has been thoroughly washed and painted so as to function as a projector screen; and, tucked away in the back loft, is the projector, it's 'Power' light flashing repetitively in the quiet shadows.

Keith is already in the loft, back to Lance and fiddling with the device, and Lance can't help but grin: it feels like they haven't seen one another in a year...

...But Lance would be just as excited to see any of his friends. Really.

Lance climbs the dusty steps to the loft. When he gets within range, he throws an arm casually over Keith's shoulder. "Come here often?" he can't help asking with a smirk; and then he feels himself stiffen, because is this normal for them? Touching and joking come-ons? He's not really sure, anymore.

He relaxes when Keith just smirks and doesn't try to dislodge the arm. "You missed the vote," Keith says, holding up a DVD that Lance's guesses the kids picked out. "I'm sure I should feel grateful about this."

"I have _great_ taste." Lance squints curiously at the file of DVD rejects on the table next to them. "Hey, is that _Tangled?"_

"Yeah, definitely grateful."

Lance is about to say something else, something that has nothing to do with how good his fellow counselor smells, when he feels a sharp pain just below his left ear. "Ow! _Fuck..."_ He removes his arm from the other man's shoulders, gingerly poking at the throbbing skin.

"What's up?" Keith asks, raising an eyebrow in concern.

"I think I just got stung by a bee..." Lance swivels around to find said insect before the kids do and a stampede is initiated, but all he can see is a lone green candy staring innocently up at him from the floorboards. "...Are you eating M&M's?"

Keith groans, covering his eyes with one hand. "No. That's probably from Samsa." Lance glances down toward the kids. They all have their backs to them, but Samsa's back is rigidly still and her ears are flushed pink. "She's deadly with a candy slingshot."

"Man," Lance says, frowning, and a little hurt. He's not used to the campers picking on him. "Is it 'Hate-on-Lance Day?' 'Cause I missed that memo."

Keith grimaces. "Sorry about that. I think it has more to do with me than you, actually."

And Lance gets it. "Ah..." he says. "I heard you had a super fan."

"Slash-bodyguard," Keith says, shrugging and starting to plug in the movie. "Which is almost funny when you think about the twelve years I've dedicated to learning martial subjects." He sighs. "You might not want to stand too close to me, or you'll probably get winged again."

"Have you talked to her at all? Or at least tried to confiscate that damn slingshot?"

"...No," Keith says, sounding a bit guilty. "If she was my age, it would be easy: I would just tell her what I tell other women." He gives Lance an unimpressed look when Lance just waits, curious. "That I'm gay," he finishes flatly, his face flushing.

"Oh," Lance says, flushing as well. "Right..." But then something else Keith said hits Lance like a ton of bricks. "Whoa, 'other women?'" He crosses his arms, feeling an ugly emotion rising in his chest that just might be jealousy, though for Keith or the women he isn't sure. "Hold the phone: just how many love confessions do you _get_ on a regular basis?"

"A few," Keith says, like he's stating how frequently he has his oil changed in a year. He flips the switches on the projector and then the lights, the room falling dark and silent. "Why, don't you?"

Not dignifying the question with a response, Lance sullenly plops on the old, squishy sofa tucked into the back of the loft as previews flick onto the screen. He's just starting to get over himself (and feel dangerously close to a nap, because Keith is sitting close to his left side, radiating body-heat, and Lance never gets to sleep-in anymore) when he recognizes the monochromatic scenes flitting before him.

He gapes at his fellow counselor. _"Casablanca?_ Did they really pick this one?" Keith nods. "Man, kids today are weird. Remember when we used to watch things like _Finding Nemo_ and nobody even knew what 'Cis' meant?"

"No, but I'm Canadian," Keith says, an undertone of pride to his words. "I've heard the American education system is a complete joke."

"Hey!" Lance leans back against the cushions of the sofa, shamelessly brandishing the lines of his body. "I'll have you know that it produced the quality specimen you see before you."

"I rest my case." But there's a dull flush to the back of Keith's neck as he eyes briefly trace Lance's frame, and Lance feels strangely victorious.

As the film starts going in earnest, he engages in a bit of Kosher Keith-watching, noting the way his couch-buddy is riveted upon the screen, fingers twitching faintly against his knees, lower lip half locked beneath his front teeth like Keith's trying not to smile.

Lance can't help but stare, feeling his heart-rate inexplicably pick up. "You're actually really stoked for this, aren't you?

"So?" Keith turns to Lance and shrugs, but the half-smile doesn't go away. "I like movies. It's not a crime."

"Yeah, but if the Fun Police were really a thing, then I'm pretty sure you'd be the chief. Or at least a sergeant."

"Huh," Keith says, like he's seriously thinking the idea over. "That's weird, because I'm pretty sure the only fun-suck in this room is you, Lance."

 _"Come on,"_ Lance needles, painfully curious, because Keith seems to have a thousand and one hobbies but almost no stories to go with them. "Explain this film-enthusiast side to your personality. I have to admit that I didn't see it coming."

"With your track record..." Keith leans back in his seat and rests one ankle on the opposite knee, "...even if you did see it coming you probably wouldn't remember it the next day." Then, as if realizing what he's just said, Keith's whole body tenses.

Lance's whole face is red with all the blood pumping to his brain, trying to help him determine if he should feel guilty or embarrassed or he doesn't even know what. When Keith turns to stare at him with an equally poleaxed expression, Lance can't help it: he snorts.

They both burst into snickers, eventually having to be shushed by a bunch of tiny, glaring faces from up front.

"No, seriously," Lance says, voice once again lowered for Keith's ears only, swiping tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes with a thumb. "What's your excuse, Oliver Twist?"

Keith stretches out his long legs in front of him, heels of his boots leaving streaks on the dusty floorboards. "I was once fostered by an elderly couple. They didn't have cable, but they had a good library. One of the shelves was nothing but old VHS's."

"Do you miss them?"

"The books or the movies?"

 _"No,_ idiot," Lance says, rolling his eyes. "The elderly couple."

There's a perplexed quirk to Keith's mouth, like he doesn't understand the question. "I don't know... I don't think about them." Keith turns his left foot to the side, inspecting the worn sole of his boot with a frown. "To tell you the truth, I don't even know if they liked me."

"Woah," Lance says, feeling weirdly protective of Keith's perceived like-able-ness. "Why the hell wouldn't they?"

"I was angry..." Keith's tone isn't self-deprecating, just factual. "...And not easy to like. Still not, probably."

"That's bullshit. You were just a kid, and you're _hella_ like-able."  Lance feels his entire face turn beet-red at the overt compliment, but he doesn't take it back.

At this last bit, Keith's mouth briefly flickers into a small smile, like it can't help itself. "It doesn't matter anyway. You can't get too attached to your foster families, because they probably won't last. Especially if you have a..." Keith's face twists into a scowl, like he's tasting a bad memory. "...a _'discipline issue.'"_

Lance swallows. "So, what? Are you telling me that they tossed you from family to family and you have nothing to show for it?"

"I still have all the books I've ever been given." Keith pauses when he senses this answer is unsatisfactory. "This conversation is upsetting you."

 _"Yeah,_ I'm upset, dammit," Lance whispers, afraid that talking in a more normal voice will carry into the crowd below them. "It's upsetting!" The idea of any kid deprived of familial attachment, forced to lock on to the one-sided comforts of fictional characters on screen and in pages, is heart-crushingly tragic. And that Keith _was_ that kid, growing up watching the lives of people who had long since been dead and he would never meet, never talk to, just makes it all so much worse, for some reason.

Lance thinks Keith deserves more than contented solitude.

"There's got to be someone important in you're life," Lance demands, feeling weirdly desperate for an affirmative. "Someone who isn't two-dimensional and dressed like they're an extra from _Leave It to Beaver."_

Grunting noncommittally, Keith plucks a can of Coke from the old, rickety side-table and flips the tab on top; a small _schickt_ noise erupts into the middle of one of Humphrey Bogart's classic one-liners. The actions look to Lance like they're too deliberate, too forcibly casual, and Lance realizes he's never seen Keith actually drink soda at all the meals they've had together.

Keith takes a long swig, like he's putting off answering the question, and Lance watches him, watches the slow bob of his closely-shaven throat, watches the way his eyes are avoiding Lance's. And, like an M&M slingshot-ed to his jugular, Lance gets it: all the hints, Shiro's weird conversational pandering, the 'friend' Keith mentioned but never went into detail over, the unacknowledged chartreuse elephant dancing in the room...

"You're in love with Shiro," Lance says, voice sounding weird and flat and not quite like himself.

Keith nearly spits Coke all over the five thousand-dollar projector.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple days, couple hours, who's counting?

Keith's unintentional soda-spray in the loft happens during a particularly active scene, so, thankfully, only a few campers in the back peek curiously over their shoulders at them.

"Where the hell did _that_ come from?" Keith hisses at Lance, eyes wide. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"It's true, isn't it?" The source-less, optimistic energy that's been fueling Lance's evening suddenly drains out of his body, leaving him feeling wiped from the unreasonably hectic week. "He's the one you were trying to get over when..." _...when you were getting off on top of me,_ Lance doesn't say out loud.  Doing so seems too depressing, for some reason.

Keith shakes his head so vigorously that his dark hair flops out of his camp hat and into his eyes.  "There's nothing romantic between Shiro and I," he says, voice firm.

"That's not a 'no.'"

Keith groans, rubbing his temples with both hands. His face is the color of the Coke can. "Look, I'm not going to go too far into it, because, frankly, it's none of your business. But there was a time when I was feeling pretty low about life and Shiro was my whole world. Label it how you like, but that's the long and short of it."

Lance glares at him. "But it _is_ my business. I need to know what the hell's going on with you two!"

"Really?" Keith says, narrowing his eyes in obvious irritation and throwing up his hands. "Please, enlighten me: how is my past _any_ of your fucking business?"

"Because I'm _into_ you, alright?" Lance's mouth spits out before his brain has a chance to properly authorize the confession. Keith stops glaring, mouth dropping open, and Lance feels his fingers and toes start to tingle with shock, because it's true: he is starting to like Keith in _that way_  (more than he should, probably) and, now that it's out there in the open, he's not sure that he can even try to stop it. "You big ass," Lance adds, in an attempt to sound less like a twelve year-old girl.

"Oh," Keith says weakly, leaning back heavily against the soft cushions of the sofa. A small cloud of dust erupts around them at the movement.

"Yeah, 'oh,'" Lance says, sarcasm his best defense when he's feeling vulnerable. "So, I need to know if I can proceed with my impure thoughts with a clear conscience, or not. Also, I think Hunk wants to start picking out China patterns for us."

Keith bites his lip, brows furrowed. "Okay..." He sighs heavily, seeming to resolve himself, and then looks Lance dead in the eyes. "Okay. I _used_ to have feelings for Shiro." One of Keith's hands slashes pointedly through the air to illustrate his next point: "As in _past-tense."_

Lance shrugs with more nonchalance than he feels. "Called it." But something flickers in the corners of his memories like a side-note. "Although, the way Shiro told it, you were more crushed-out than, you know, riding the Love Train."

"Shiro was talking to you about me?" Keith asks with a scowl. _"Fucker..._ He and I are going to have words, later." And Lance definitely doesn't want to be a fly on the wall for _that_ conversation. "Anyway, he's wrong: I know myself, and I know my own mind. Just like I know that I'm over it, these days."

"Oh," Lance says weakly.

"Yeah, _'oh,'"_ Keith says, mimicking Lance's earlier sarcasm. "Besides: if it was still an issue, then I never would've agreed to go on a date with you."

Lance is nodding thoughtfully, still processing Keith's earlier confession, when this last little nugget causes a full-stop in his synapses. "Who-da-wha-?" he asks articulately, staring at the other man. "What date?"

Keith raises an eyebrow. "In a week?" He blinks at Lance's blank expression. "You mean, you didn't-?" Keith makes a noise of frustration, burying his face in both hands. "You bastard!" he says, voice muffled. "Why do you keep _doing_ that?"

"Doing what?!" Lance asks, alarmed.

"You throw around phrases like 'Come back to my place,' and 'Get a drink sometime'-!"

"I just mean them like they sound!"

 _"No one means them like they sound, Lance,"_ Keith says, looking up again with a murderous glare. "Even I know that! I'm not good at reading people, but I know _words,_ and I rely on them." He shoves an accusatory finger hard into Lance's chest. "Stop being so fucking irresponsible."

"Hey," Lance says nervously, holding up two hands to ward off potential blows. "I wasn't trying to mess with your head or anything. I just don't know how to react around you. You're kind-of the first person I've gotten naked with and haven't tried to date."

"Wow, thanks a lot."

"Believe me when I say that I meant that as a compliment," Lance says, gesticulating wildly with his hands as he speaks. "I once dated a guy who seemed cool but kind-of turned out to be a drug-dealer. And when that ended, I dated his _sister,_ who eventually stole my car and tied me to a tree. Not really in that order." Keith's eyebrows raise into his hairline, and Lance is pretty sure he should stop reminiscing before Keith decides that Lance is a freak and whips out a can of pepper spray. "Anyway, the moral of the story is that I have _awesome_ friends but date terrible people: you're way too good of a person for me to date; but you're also too stupidly-attractive for me to properly friend-zone, hence the issues we seem to be having."

At the end of this spiel, Keith leans forward so that his elbows rest on his knees, frowning at the floorboards. There's a long, anxiety-inducing moment where no-one speaks.

"...You really think I'm a good person?" Keith eventually questions, and it's not at all what Lance expected.

"Well... yeah," Lance says, rifling through his memories for a single instance where Keith's behavior might've indicated otherwise and coming up blank. Keith seems to practically burn with altruistic motivation, like an avenging angel forging great deeds in the face of adversity. "You kind of radiate with it, like the Red Hulk." Probably not the best example, but whatever. "That wasn't supposed to be a serious question, was it?"

Keith smirks, but there's a warmth to his expression, a comfort that hasn't been directed at Lance until now. "You know, if I'd been there..." Keith says, eyes sparking with something almost dangerous, "...I would've gotten your car back for you."

And Lance's mouth goes dry, because if Keith's fired-up, deadly certainty isn't one of the sexiest things ever, then he doesn't know what is.

"I bet you could've," Lance croaks, voice hoarse. He clears his throat. "So, are you gonna cut me some slack? Because if you still want to turn this getting a drink thing into _getting a drink,_ then slap a captain's hat on me, because I'm so on board."

Keith rolls his eyes but still manages to look fond in his complete exasperation. "Whatever."

And Lance grins smugly, scooching closer to Keith on the already small couch. "I knew you couldn't resist my charms."

"What're you doing?"  Keith looks nervously to the kids whom are all still absorbed in the antics of lovelorn ex-patriots, but he doesn't move away, either.  

Lance just shifts until their thighs are pressed against one another, Lance turned at the waist so that he's facing the other man (but he also makes sure that Samsa isn't watching, because _ow,_ M &M's are fucking painful when launched at high velocity). "It's fine, dear, the kids are watching a movie." He then gently takes Keith's chin in his hand, pausing with his thumb resting over the front of it, asking permission through his hesitation...

...And Keith answers it by closing the gap between them with no hesitation whatsoever, fingers of one hand curling into the soft, cotton collar of Lance's tee-shirt.

It's a simple kiss, small and chaste, but it's also, somehow, more charged than their frantic encounter years ago: Lance presses his lower lip into the dip of Keith's mouth, slightly taking Keith's upper lip in between his own. He can feel Keith give a small pant against him as they fold together, lips locking and then separating and then meeting again, the taste of Coke still on Keith's tongue.

Keith's fingers lightly brush the side of Lance's face, trailing down his neck, and Lance shivers.

_"Lance."_

Lance pulls away, their sudden separation creating a small, slick noise between them. "Huh?" he blearily asks Keith, whose eyes are still closed. "What's wrong?"

Keith's eyes open, blinking rapidly like he needs to clear his vision. "I didn't say anything," he says, looking punch-drunk and a little pissed-off at being interrupted.

 _"Lance?"_ They both look to the radio at Lance's hip when it spouts Lance's name again into the silence between them, the person on the other end obviously and desperately trying to make contact with its owner.

Lance unclips it, bringing it up to his mouth. "Lance, here," he says.  He hopes that he doesn't sound at all like he's been making out in a theater.

 _"Thank God,"_ Hunk's voice says through the radio speaker, somehow managing to convey anxiety through the poor audio quality. _"You got a sec?"_

"Uh, yeah.  What's shakin', buddy?"

_"We have a bit of an emergency."_

Lance grimaces, because an emergency can mean a thousand little things at a summer camp, most of the them gross. "Is there projectile vomiting involved?"

Hunk hesitates, or it might just be the radio reception. _"Uh, not yet? But my anxiety-levels are pretty amped up right now, and the night is still young. Just- just come to the dinning hall ASAP, okay?"_

Lance frowns, not wanting to ditch in the middle of what's turning out to be an incredibly auspicious night...

...But he _is_ still technically on the clock...   _Fuck._

"Ten-Four," Lance grumbles, reluctantly. He then looks to Keith, who's still flushed and looks grumpy; but he also appears calmly resigned, because apparently Keith is nothing if not adaptable.

"Go," Keith says, shrugging. "I'll watch the brats. You can make it up to me later."

"I have to warn you..." Lance says, moving to stand on slightly wobbly legs; he grabs up his bag and re-pockets his radio. "...I'm really fucking _awesome_ at apologizing." He leers suggestively, shooting Keith the finger-gun.

Keith snorts. "I'm sure it's the only reason you've survived to this age. _Go."_

Lance bolts down the stairs, veins throbbing with an energy and excitement that, okay, probably has more to do with Keith than he was willing to admit earlier. It carries him all the way across the camp compound, making his steps light and easy.

+++

When Lance bursts into the dining hall, Hunk is standing there, floral, oven-mitted hands holding a tray of steaming cookies and wearing the 'I have no idea what I'm doing' apron that Lance gave him as a gag gift. There's a pained expression to Hunk's face, like the one he usually gets when people are making terrible choices all around him and he can't just lock them in their rooms until they come to their senses.

"Hey," Lance pants, striding up. When he gets close he leans over to rest his hands on his own knees, winded. "Where's the fire?"

"Um..." Hunk's expression gets locked, like he's trying to come up with an adequate explanation. Obviously giving up after a few seconds, he just shakes his head with a sigh and steps aside.

Behind Hunk, seated on one of the benches at the staff table, is a woman; tall and lean, she swivels around on the bench with catlike grace, smirking as she tosses the remainder of one of Hunk's cookies into her mouth. "Hey, handsome," she says, leaning back with her elbows braced on the table behind her. "Miss me, much?"

Lance's jaw drops, his own anxiety-levels achieving impressively Hunk-like levels.

_"...Nyma?!"_


	11. Chapter 11

"Nyma..." Lance shakes his head, starting to worry that the entire evening is just a weirdass trip on some illegit stuff he doesn't even remember taking. "What in the name of all that is good and vegan are you _doing_ here?"

Swinging herself to her feet with a lazy grin, Nyma takes a few slow steps forward until she and Lance are about a foot apart, her own considerable, _Next Top Model_ -worthy height putting them at eye-level. "What does it look like I'm doing?" She taps a long, tan finger coyly against his chest, and Lance swallows nervously. "I was in the area, and I thought I'd pay my boyfriend a house-call. Romantic, huh?"

"Um," Hunk interjects, raising one mitted hand like he's in class, and they both turn. "I would just like to point out that we are at an absurd elevation, surrounded by nationally protected forest, and literally _miles from civilization."_ He raises his other mitt, the tips bobbing in a way that suggests he's using finger-quotes. "The only things "in the area" are us."

Nyma shrugs and whips back around to face Lance, thick blonde braid smacking him in the shoulder. "My statement stands: I'm in the area, and I know we have a lot to catch up on."

"Nyma." Lance opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, and then makes a noise of frustration as he scrubs his fingers roughly through his scalp. "Maybe this didn't occur to you in the six months you've been _completely MIA_ , but you and I aren't actually together anymore."

Nyma smirks, brushing some imaginary dust from one of Lance's shoulders. "Yes, we are."

"Uh, no, we _aren't."_ Lance shakes his head so emphatically that his eardrums rattle, partially because he _knows_ Nyma: she has a tendency to get ideas in her head, and it's very difficult to displace them with evidence to the contrary; also, having her this close after so many months (many of which he might have secretly engaged is some very masculine pining) makes it difficult to focus. She smells like Chai and bad ideas. "Maybe it slipped your mind while you were out playing galaxy bandit, but you tied me to a tree and stole my car-"

"I brought it back," she says. She puts both hands on her hips, obviously pleased with herself. "It's in the parking lot-"

 _"-Tied me to a tree, Nyma!"_ Lance exclaims, trying to impress the epic uncoolness of such a deed through repetition. "After we had sex! You did me like an NPC hooker from _Grand Theft Auto!"_

Nyma snorts at that. "As if; I don't have to pay for sex." When this comment doesn't seem to assuage whatever emotions she sees forming on Lance's face, she actually shifts a bit in discomfort. "And you know that I can't help it. The meds only do so much for the kleptomania."

It's Lance's turn to snort in disbelief. "Yeah," he says, crossing his arms. "You're such a victim. You're like a-" Lance rifles through the filing cabinet of his brain to find the least Nyma-ish thing he can imagine "-like a lost puppy in the rain. Who's had his car stolen by his girlfriend!"

"Hey, this isn't all on me, pancake. I warned you this might happen when we met," she says with such pragmatism that Lance sags a little, because she _did_ warn him. "It's like this itch at the back of my brain that I can't not scratch, you know?"

"Were you too busy scratching to text me? 'Cause a text would have been stellar."

"Well, I figured you'd be mad and need some time to cool down..." Nyma says, peering at Lance's stunned expression, like he's one of Hunk's cookies and she wants to poke him to see if he's baked long enough. "...Maybe I should've given you a bit more time to process."

"Ya _think?"_ Lance sputters, voice reaching a particularly high octave. "I just got over this train-wreck of a relationship-"

"Technically, it's not over, yet. We never _officially_ broke up-"

 _"Nyma._ Look at this face," Lance says, pointing at his own flummoxed expression with two index fingers. "Please, look up the word "Breakup" on _Wikipedia:_ this is the face you're going to see in the example photos, clipped from the article 'Worst Fucking Relationship Endings in the History of Man.'"

"So... what?" Nyma asks, frowning; she reaches out to pinch the edge of Lance's old staff tee-shirt, gently rolling the fabric between two fingers. "You won't forgive me, pumpkin?"

And Lance bites his lip, because that is definitely not what he's trying to say; though, to be fair, he has no clue what he actually is trying to say. Being broken up with is something he understands, but trying to communicate the colossal done-ness of a relationship to someone else is new territory. "I..." he starts.

"Lance." Lance and Nyma both turn to Hunk again, whose expression is locked in a grimace. "Can we talk outside, for a minute, please?"

"Uh," Lance says, but he doesn't get the chance to say anything else because Hunk is already leaving the building, and Lance knows he has no choice but to follow. "Hold that thought?" he says to Nyma, carefully stepping out of her personal space. Nyma watches, calmly curious, like she's not at all offended that Lance and Hunk are obviously about to have a conversation about her without her present. "Or better yet, exchange whatever thought you had for a much safer, more boring one-"

"Lance!"

"Keep your apron on!" Lance shouts back, hurrying from the room.

+++

Once they're safely out of earshot in the outside eating area, Hunk lets him have it.

"No, no, no!" There's a brief pause while Hunk takes a breath before continuing. "Just _no!"_

"Hunk..."

"No! I won't let you do this." Lance nearly jumps out of his skin when Hunk throws down his oven mitts onto a nearby picnic table: it's easily the greatest display of Hunk-aggression that Lance has ever seen. "You know how I feel about her and her brother! You can't trust them. They get in your head, man, and start filling it with all this madness pudding-"

"Madness pudding?"

"-And the next thing I know, you're tied to a tree on the side of the road with your heart broken," Hunk says, swiping a hand through the air; Lance leans back out of the way of it, gaping. "No mas. If you want to set yourself up for another hard fall-"

"Hunk-"

"-then you're going to have to do it without me around. _Divorce_ -style."

And this shocks Lance more than anything else has tonight. "Really?" he says, gulping. "You'd leave me for trying to get back together with Nyma again?"

"For your own good? Yep. I take care of my own." Hunk sags a little, his decennial eleven seconds of anger obviously spent, and he starts to remove his apron with more care than he did the oven mitts. "You'd probably make it a day without me before crawling back, anyway."

"Not even," Lance says, hopping up onto the table next to Hunk, his feet perched on the bench seat. "You know I need you."

"Then take care of yourself, for once. You've gotta stop self-sabotaging just because you're afraid."

"That doesn't make any sense at all." Lance throws up his hands, exasperated. "I'm not afraid of anything. And even if I was-" he jerks his head in the direction of the dining hall "-then why the hell would I pick _Nyma?_ Her relationship tactics are Michael Myers-scary."

As if on cue, they both hear a sharp tap of knuckles on glass, and grinning at them through the dining hall window is the subject of their pow-wow: Nyma breathes delicately on the glass with all the casual sex-appeal of Marilyn Monroe standing serendipitously over a vent, and then she proceeds to draw an image in the now-foggy pane.

Lance kind-of expects a heart, but, really, he should know better by now; when the drawing is finished in all its phallic glory, Lance thinks that they'll definitely have to Windex the window before one of the kids sees the streaks.

Hunk groans, slapping a hand over his eyes. "No, no, no..."

Lance decides to cut off the rant before they go through the whole spiel all over again. "Hunk!"

"What?"

"I am not getting back together with Nyma!"

Hunk removes his hand from his eyes, expression pained. "See, this is what I was worried-" and then Lance's words seem to click in his friend's overly-anxious brain. "Wait, what?"

Lance shrugs with forced casualness, clasping his hands between his knees. "You heard me. I'm done with her madness pudding, no matter how diabolically delicious the flavor. Even I know not to open a bag of angry cats more than once." At Hunk's raised eyebrow, he amends his statement. "Okay, more than twice!"

Hunk doesn't say anything in response to this, so Lance takes a couples seconds to frown down at the rough wooden planking beneath his feet and mentally prepare himself for yet another breakup in a long string of romantic failures (though, this will actually be his first time initiating said breakup).

He wonders if it's his fault that all his relationships are such unbelievable disasters.

"Hey..." Hunk starts, and Lance breaks away from brooding to look up at his frowning friend. "You okay?"

Lance puts on his most disarming grin and hops down from the picnic table. "You know me," he says, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "I'm always okay."

Hunk just sighs.

+++

When Lance goes back into the dining hall, Nyma is pacing like a caged tiger; she's never been good at staying in one place for too long, and the sight of it fills him with an old warmth that used to mean a lot more to him than it does now.

He clears his throat. "Nyma."

Nyma spins around with an easy smile. "Hey, sweet potato," she says, stretching her arms above her head so that her lean muscles are on display. "Cooled off, yet?"

"Yeah... and no." Lance moves toward her, taking her by the shoulders (which has the added benefit of keeping her at arms-length, because he's only a mere mortal). "Nyma, you're great in a lot of ways; sometimes you're great in ways that make me want to set myself on fire, but those aren't really your fault." He pauses, summoning up the nerve to forge onward. She raises an eyebrow. "But enough is enough."

"What do you-?"

"I'm breaking up with you." There, he's said it.

There's a long, stunned silence, as if neither of them can believe what he's said.

"Oh... huh," Nyma says, frowning at Lance's face like she's seeing him for the first time tonight. "Are you for real?"

Lance swallows the sudden lump in his throat. "Real as Oprah's love of dessert," he says, voice strained.

"Wow," Nyma says slowly, like she's waiting for him to say, _Hey, just kidding!_   "No-one's ever broken up with me, before."

"Well, this entire evening's kind-of been a learning experience for everyone." Then, realizing how harsh a statement that might sound, he winces and amends it. "I mean that in a non-douche-y way."

Nyma just nods distractedly, stepping out of Lance's hands so that they fall limply to his sides. Wandering over to one of Hunk's hanging ferns, she plucks a dried from the otherwise verdant foliage, inspecting it with a frown. "Is there someone else?" she asks, still not looking at Lance.

"Sort-of..." Lance admits, honestly, and she whips around, curious. "...But even if there wasn't, I would still be breaking up with you."

"Why?" Nyma mutters, curling her fingers protectively over the dead leaf as if Lance's words are somehow directed at it. "We've had fun; _you've_ had fun, I know you have."

"That's not enough anymore."

Nyma's face screws up as if Lance slapped her. "Fine," she says, turning her back. "Whatever. I don't care."

Lance's whole body twitches with the desire to reach out, somehow, but he knows it's useless: even when they were together, Nyma never let him comfort her in a way that really mattered; she never really let him bridge that distance. There was a time when he thought that that kind of empty connection was somehow easier, as if denying his own personal needs could be less complicated that being honest about them, but love is never easy.

"You can keep the car," he finally says, because he's not so heartless that he'll dump someone and leave them stranded (though, _fuck_ if he hasn't missed Blue all these months). "You're better with them anyway."

When Nyma doesn't say anything in response, he slowly turns to go, and at least now he knows first-hand that breakups are shitty regardless of what side you're on.

Lance's got his hand on the door-handle when Nyma's voice stops him.  "...Wait."

He looks curiously over his shoulder: Nyma has turned back to face him again, is furiously glaring at the polished wooden floor beneath her boots, hands on her hips. "I do care about you, shortcake," she says after another long, tense pause. "I mean, _Lance..."_ (And Lance vaguely realizes that he's never before had Nyma address him with his own name instead of something random and food-based). "...You know that, right?"

"I know."

"I'm not all bad."

"I know."

"Did you ever love me?" Nyma asks, eyes defensively fierce in the face of so much vulnerable conversation. She bites her lip, and Lance realizes that she's not asking because she doesn't already know his answer; she's asking because she wants to hear him say it.

Which, really, will probably be the easiest thing Lance's said all night. "Of course I did. I still love you," he says, shrugging. "I just can't date you."

Her face crumples a bit.

And he doesn't expect the admission to earn him the only platonic Nyma-hug he's ever received, but it's a night of firsts: she launches herself into his arms, her own arms like aggressive steel bands around his torso that could compete with Keith's spooning for dominance (and yeah, okay: Lance has a type).

And it's true that he did love Nyma, once, and part of him will always crave that psycho, kleptomaniac flavor that only she was able to bring to the mostly vanilla yogurt that is Lance's life. But, now that he's holding her in his arms again (something he so badly wished for not so many months ago), he's also grateful that this particular chapter of his life is over. He's ready to let her go, ready to let her drive off in his (beautiful, beloved, irreplaceable) car, forever...

+++

...Or not.

"You _hired_ my crazy, klepto ex?!"

Allura sighs, flipping delicately through an _Oriental Trading Company_ catalog. It's pages are gently illuminated by the light streaming through her office blinds. "Keep your voice down, please. It's early, and I haven't had my coffee, yet."

Lance quickly moves to the bubbling brewer in the corner of the office, fills the 'Fucking in charge of you, you fucking fucks' mug sitting next to it, and then sets the mug pointedly down in front of Allura. "There: now that you have coffee, will you please _un_ -hire my ex-girlfriend?"

"I'll have you know, Lance..." Allura says, lightly tearing the top strip off of a packet of sugar before depositing its innards into the mug "...that not everything that I do -or even the vast majority of what goes on at this camp- revolves around you."

"Of course, it does!" Lance squeaks in a very manly fashion. He levels an accusatory glare at his uncooperative boss. "I know that you still haven't forgiven me for Junior year."

"An incident for which you have yet to apologize but that had no bearing on my decision to hire Nyma," Allura says in a reasonable tone, stirring the rapidly dissolving sugar with a coffee stirrer. "The fact of the matter is that I can't afford not to: Nyma has a degree in mechanical engineering, and this camp needs a good repairwoman. She's incredibly over-qualified."

"How the hell did she pass the background check?"

Allura shrugs. "The vast majority of her misdemeanors have been pardoned. Kleptomania is a very real condition, Lance."

Lance groans, flopping down into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. "Right, and the fact that she looks great in cropped jean shorts has nothing to do with it."

"My motives were pure," Allura says, blinking innocently at him from behind her mug, but Lance can see a trace of a smile curl her lips. "And that would be an abuse of my position."

"Just admit that you're a dirty old pervert."

"Pot..." Allura says, taking a slow sip between smirking lips "...Kettle."

Groaning again, Lance just melts further into the chair and watches Allura return to her magazine. He didn't really sleep the night before after his and Nyma's Big Talk, and he's tired; scratch that, he's _dead_ -tired.

But not as tired as Allura looks, he realizes upon closer inspection; because under her calm, confident aura Lance can see the signs of stress that come with running a camp in your early twenties, with taking up an enormous enterprise halfway through law-school because your father suddenly died of an embolism: her eyes have bags under them, her dark skin has a grayish undertone to it, and her usually meticulously dyed hair is starting to show black roots.

Lance wonders if she looks like this all the time now, and he just never gets close enough to see it anymore.

"Hey," he says, and she looks up, expression wary. "I'm sorry if I'm being a dick. I don't always think about the things I say or do, but I'm trying to be better."

There's a long moment while Allura watches him cautiously, as if waiting for the punchline to his statement. When it doesn't come, she rises from her desk and moves to the coffee brewer in the corner. "I know," she says, fiddling with settings on the machine. She sighs. "And I know it's not fair to you that I'm so impatient these days."

"I'm kind of a lot to take, I get it," Lance says, swiveling around to face her turned back. "And it must be pretty stressful, running this place by yourself."

Allura shakes her head slowly. "You don't know the half of it." She pours another cup, moving back to the desk and, to Lance's great surprise, hands it to him; she then re-seats herself. "May I tell you a secret?" she asks after a minute of surprisingly comfortable silence.

Lance, who was about to take a sip, freezes halfway, mouth still open. "Uh, sure? I guess it would probably be better to tell me than Hunk, if you actually want it to stay a secret."

The corners of Allura's mouth twitch. "I wish that I could sell this place," she says, calm as can be.

And whatever Lance was expecting, it wasn't this. He sputters a bit of scalding coffee, and Allura leans back out of the way with a disgusted frown. "You're not serious, right?" he asks, wiping his mouth. "You've poured your heart and soul into this place. Honestly, I thought at one point that you'd sold your soul just to keep it afloat."

"That's just it, isn't it?" Allura says, not even denying the accusations of soul-peddling. "I've given every part of myself to this endeavor, because it's what my father wanted for this place. But this isn't what I wanted to do with my life."

"Then what do you want?"

"I don't know.  Perhaps just the chance to figure it out?"

Lance sets his coffee forlornly on the desktop, knowing what any good friend is supposed to say in this kind of scenario and that he has to man-up. Or, Pidge-up, as he likes to call it. "Okay," he says, feeling like he's shooting himself in the foot. "If anyone's earned the right to roam like a wild stallion, it's you. So, when're you selling?"  _Fuck,_ change is depressing.

Allura shrugs one shoulder. "I'm not."

 _Now,_  Lance is confused. "Didn't you just-?"

"Lance..." Allura says very seriously, expression earnest in a way it rarely is when she's out in public, and Lance realizes that he hasn't seen her this open in years. He remembers the first time he saw her, eyes full of angry tears as she stood outside of the middle-school principal's office, terrified that she'd be held back in the school year because she attended a different education system in a different country the year previous.   _That_ Allura would've done anything to avoid looking like a failure.

But she's changed; they both have.

"...There are two kinds of people in the world," Allura continues, awkwardly patting him on the arm like he's the one that needs to be comforted (and what's up with everyone suddenly treating him like he's terminally ill, or something?). "There are those that get to do what they wish, and then there are those who have to do what they must."

It goes unspoken which category they each fall into, but Lance doesn't really have to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind-of a more serious chapter, but it deals with some serious topics in Lance's life. On to lighter subjects in the next chapter, I promise. :)


	12. Chapter 12

The best part (in Lance's opinion, anyway) about working at a camp is working with the kids.

Kids are great: they're honest and ridiculous and loud, and it's impossible to dwell on the drama of adult life when you're surrounding by the all-encompassing mini-dramas of being a kid; and when Lance is taking care of other people, he doesn't have to focus on trimming the unruly hedge maze that is his own personal life.

(Not that he really even knows how: if a problem can't be solved by a bowl of icecream or a well-placed Batman bandaid, then hell if he knows what to do)

Which brings Lance to the worst part about working at a camp: you absolutely, one-hundred percent, have to stick to the routine. Kids need -thrive, even- on routine, and if a counselor veers from that than all hope is lost is a giant, flaming ball of shit-tastic doom worthy of an episode of _Lost_ (according to Coran's counselor handbook, anyway). So, when Lance doesn't see Keith _or_ Nyma at breakfast the morning after Nyma's big arrival, it's not like he can up and ditch his kids to go find them.

"Trouble in paradise?" Pidge asks around a belch, diving into an enormous bowl of Lucky Charms.

Lance looks up from the hardcore staring contest he's been having with his hand radio. "No! Okay, maybe a little..."

"Alright, I'll bite," Pidge says, swallowing and pausing the anime violence taking place on the laptop in front of them. "What's your damage, Lance? Your manic energy is so pervasive it's distracting me from the one thing that helps me ignore everything else in the world: Japanese animation."

"I'm bracing myself. And also possibly planning an escape attempt from this camp."

"Bracing for what? And there's no escaping Allura," Pidge says pragmatically. "She probably had a pet-tracking chip installed under your skin while you were sleeping just to make sure that you fulfill your contract."

Lance opens his mouth to reply, but before he can a thought tickles at the back of his brain, and he levels a suspicious glare at Pidge; because if anyone's illicitly installing nanotech in other peoples sub-dermis while they sleep on Allura's behalf, it's Pidge.

Pidge just whistles innocently and clicks play on the laptop again.

"Anywho," Lance says, willing to overlook Pidge's potential as a superspy in favor of having someone to listen to his woes, "in answer to your question, I'm bracing for the probable implosion of my personal life. The ghost of Christmas past has arrived to haunt me, and as soon as she collides with Christmas Present, _shit will go down."_ He shudders. "Tiny Tim won't be the only one on crutches."

"I guess you're referring to the fact that your super hot ex-girlfriend pulled a _Scott Pilgrim,_ tracked you to the middle of nowhere, and is now working alongside you and the counselor whose pants you're currently trying to get into?"

"Woah, slow your roll, Teen Angst," Lance says, holding up one finger. "I'm not trying to get into Keith's pants." _Been there, done that._ "I'm... wooing his pants. And the rest of him." And okay, Lance knows he could not have possibly picked a more lame descriptor for whatever he's going for with Keith, but he's had more coffee than sleep and Pidge's shining intelligence always tends to bring out the more stupid versions of himself, like an Angler Fish attracting smaller, dumber fish with its creepy-ass headlamp. "And how do you know all this?"

Pidge shrugs. "Hunk texted me about two hours ago to give me the skinny."

"I only found out about Nyma getting hired an hour ago! How the hell do you know about my life before me?" Lance can't help crossing his arms petulantly. "It's like you guys have all formed some secret, diabolical organization that's plotting my every life move before I make it."

"If that were true, I'm pretty sure Allura wouldn't have planned for you to throw up in her purse last year-"

"I said I was sorry!"

"-Also, paranoid much? You are the captain of your own ship, Lance, so take responsibility for it."

Grumbling, Lance slouches down in his seat, disgruntled at being accused of immaturity by a seventeen year-old who showers once a week and, despite a genius-level IQ, thought Santa Claus was real until age fifteen. "I guess you have a point, as usual," he concedes. "And why can't you be more like Shiro? At least when he points out my flaws, he gets all mystical and confusing so I can usually ignore what he's saying."

"If everyone was more like Shiro, we wouldn't need Shiros." Pidge chases straggling colored marshmallows lazily with a spoon. "I speculate that when his job here is done, he'll ride away on a nimbus cloud to some other needful dimension of losers."

"Someone say my name?" Shiro pops up, fresh as a daisy, and claps his hand on Lance's shoulder. He doesn't wait for a reply. "Ready to go, canoe-buddy?"

Lance jumps, not quite processing the question. And then it hits him: "Canoe?" he squeaks. "That's _today?"_

"You need to keep a better eye on the schedule," Shiro says, cheerfully dragging Lance off of the bench-seat.

"Shiro! I can't sit in the middle of the lake all day! I'm having a crisis!"

"You can have the crisis in the canoe. Let's go."

Pidge waves goodbye at them distractedly, eyes still locked on the animated characters kicking ass on the computer screen, as Lance is forcibly dragged from the building by his tee-shirt.

+++

It's so freaking typical that on the one day Lance needs to be on site performing damage-control on his love-life, he's stuck in the middle of a lake.

It's his own fault, really: Lance has his flaws, sure, but he also has a fairly impressive background in water-sports that even Allura can't deny; so, when the time comes to teach campers to water-ski or make sure they don't drown themselves in the lake or (in this particular instance) supervise a long line of canoes filled with children unwisely armed with wooden oars, Lance is usually the go-to guy.

If it weren't for their strangely heart-felt conversation that morning, Lance would suspect that it's really because Allura is secretly hoping he'll drown and cease being a nuisance in her business endeavors.

"You know Allura cares about you," Shiro says mildly, and Lance guesses he's been darkly muttering his own thoughts aloud while paddling (either that or Shiro is psychic, which doesn't seem terribly unlikely). They're canoe buddies, bringing up the rear in case one of the campers' canoes flips or decides to wander off on some Coming of Age, wilderness adventure: Shiro has an impressive, one-handed paddle that straps to his entire forearm and that he wields with seemingly no effort; and yet Lance knows it requires a ridiculous amount of strength, because he tried to use it once and nearly had a stroke.

 _Heh... stroke,_ Lance thinks to himself. _Pun-y..._

One of the new counselors, Shay, is leading the pack with Coran in another two-man canoe up front, her powerful arms slicing through the water with such finesse and effectiveness that Coran initially seemed close to passing out in his desperate attempts to match her pace; now, however, he's left all the paddling to his companion in favor of giving helpful hints to the other canoes through his megaphone:

"Any campers caught without properly fastened life-jackets will sleep in the spider-filled equipment shed for the remainder of the summer!" Coran shouts cheerfully, his magnified voice screeching across the water, and a few campers look up nervously from their paddling. "Just kidding! Or am I?" he adds, raising an imperious eyebrow in challenge.

Lance, meanwhile, has been spending the entire lake-run thoroughly distracted, pausing multiple times in his rowing to watch the lakeshore through his binoculars. At the third such instance, Shiro sighs and unstraps the paddle from his arm.

"Lance," he says in a patient tone, but, then again, Shiro always sounds patient. Lance guesses it's because the universe likes to consistently surround Shiro with people who test his exasperation threshold. "I understand that you're having a..." Shiro pauses, perhaps to seek out a diplomatic way to describe Lance's methods of dealing with drama, "...a social crisis, but your constant pitstops to spy on the shoreline are literally getting us nowhere."

"I can't help it, Shiro," Lance insists, letting his binoculars fall to hang around his neck as he turns to the other man. "Somewhere, somehow, Nyma is doing something utterly diabolical; I can feel it all the way in the cuticles of my toes. And here I am, stuck in a fucking _canoe."_ He groans and dramatically falls back against Shiro's knees, the canoe sloshing lazily at the movement.

"Exactly," Shiro says. He firmly props a hand under Lance's back and pushes him back to the other side of the boat. "You're stuck where you are. So, there's no point in worrying about what she's doing, because you're powerless to stop it."

Lance snorts and resumes spying, even though he hasn't caught sight of anything important or catastrophic yet: just Hunk feeding some squirrels and Pidge dislodging some earwax with an enormous Q-tip (man, that kid is waxy). No Nyma, and no Keith either, and it just makes him more nervous rather than less. "Easy for you to say," he counters. "I bet you never have crazy exes tracking you to remote locales just to slap you in the face with the past."

"Don't be so sure. I knew a woman once when I was cage-fighting in Peru-"

"Wait, what?" Lance nearly drops his binoculars into the lake. "Cage-fighting? _Peruvian_ cage-fighting-?"

Shiro holds up a hand to stave off his questions, because it wouldn't be Shiro without a mysterious and deadly-interesting past. "Not relevant to the situation at hand. The point I was going to make is that we all have moments when our mistakes come back to haunt us," he says calmly, as if the conversation they're having is somehow normal. "But how we deal with them is a greater mark of our character than never making any mistakes at all."

"That's a great sentiment, Shiro, and I'll definitely remember it if I ever go into the business of writing motivational greeting cards," Lance says. "But my mistakes are usually so explosive and embarrassing that random bystanders tend to sit back and _judge_. And I can't really blame them," Lance mutters this last bit more to himself than Shiro, watching his own distorted reflection frowning up at him from the lakewater, his body silhouetted by a cloudless sky.

Shiro lightly nudges him in the shoulder with the oar. "Hey. No matter what Nyma might say to him, Keith isn't going to care that you used to date her."

But Lance is completely unprepared for this impressive insight into his psyche (though, really, he shouldn't be surprised).  He blinks owlishly at the other man and immediately switches into Evade Mode. "Uh... Keith who?" _Okay,_ he thinks. _So, maybe feigning amnesia is overkill..._

Shiro rolls his eyes, and maybe the reason Shiro's patience is so impressive is because he spends so much time with Lance. "I know you two have a bit of a thing for one another."

At this, Lance drops his oar into the water alongside the boat and then proceeds to spend the next thirty, incredibly awkward seconds slapping desperately at the water with his hands to retrieve it, Shiro effortlessly leaning to compensate for the tilt of the canoe.

"Me and Keith?" Lance finally huffs, out of breath and red-faced when they settle back again. "Pshaw, that would be just weird! Almost as weird as talking about said impossible thing with his brother in a canoe."

"In that case, I'll just hypothetically say that he likes you, too."

"For real?" Lance whips around to stare at the other man, and Shiro has to quickly duck to avoid accidentally taking the side of Lance's oar to the head. "I mean, I don't know what you're-"

"You can stop playing dumb, Lance. Hunk's been giving me the play-by-play."

"Dammit, Hunk!" Lance groans, but because he's stuck in the middle of the lake with no Hunk in sight, he turns his accusatory glare on Shiro, instead. "Wait," he demands, "Why are you suddenly so chatty about this brother that you never even told me about in all the years I've known you?"

Shiro's expression is carefully blank. "The situation never called for it, I guess."

"Shiro, cut the cryptic old monk in a temple motif, or I swear on my Grandma that I will pull the plug out of this boat right now." To illustrate his point, Lance wiggles his fingers like a B-movie villain as he reaches menacingly for said plug in the floorboards of the canoe.

Shiro slaps his bare foot down on the plug. "Okay, okay," he says. "In the past, I've never really spoken about Keith and I because, well... we used to have a complicated relationship. On Keith's part, at the very least."

"Like... romantically complicated?" Lance asks, scratching at the woodgrain in his oar with forced casualness, but he's really watching out of the corner of his eye to gauge the other man's reaction.

Shiro actually looks taken aback (which is weird to see, because Lance doesn't think he's ever managed to surprise Shiro before). "Where on Earth did that come from?" he asks, shaking his head, but then seems to think better of waiting for Lance's answer before continuing. "From the moment we met, there's been a connection between Keith and I." Shiro thumps his hand twice against his own chest. "But it's definitely a _familial_ one. I feel like Keith is more family to me than my blood relations."

Lance can't really blame him for this, because he met Shiro's family once and they're pretty similar to the Irish half of Lance's family: cold and distant and wealthy, like dragons constantly standing watch over a hoard consisting of solid pension plans and old-world traditionalism. Lance would pick Keith, too.

But something still doesn't feel quite resolved. "That's not the way Keith sees it, you know," Lance points out.

Shiro rubs the back of his own neck with a grunt of acknowledgement, the closest he ever seems to come to a nervous gesture. "It's part of why I dragged him to this camp," he says evasively. "Change of scenery to give him perspective on a lot of things."

"And how's that working out?"

"Pretty well," Shiro says, and there's that cryptic smirk again.

Lance sags against the side of the canoe. "Hopefully that will continue even if Nyma manages to chat him up while we're gone," he mutters to himself.

"Are you really so embarrassed by Nyma?" Shiro asks, and he sounds just a touch disappointed in Lance.

"What? No, of course not." And then Lance grimaces, shame-faced. "Okay, maybe a little, and I get that that probably makes me an asshole and a hypocrite and a little sexist in some way or another, but that's not really what's bothering me. I care about Nyma, and she's a good person in her own way; she's also probably a felon, but hey, nobody's perfect."

"Then where's the fire?"

Lance frowns as he tries to pinpoint the real issue, and Shiro waits quietly. "I guess it's me," Lance eventually settles on, averting his gaze as he picks a loose thread in his swim-trunks. "I don't want Nyma to give him the goods on me: I was a kind-of a mess not so long ago in a galaxy pretty close to here, and she's like some manic-pixie Ghost of Christmas Past coming to point out all the bad shit I did that I don't want anyone to know about."

"Okay, first off..." Shiro says, holding up one index finger, "...I actually managed to understand all of that, which means I'm probably spending too much time with all you Millennials. Secondly, you don't know that Nyma is going to talk bad about you. And thirdly, if anyone knows how it feels to have people misinterpreting you based on superficial information, it's me. So, believe me when I tell you not to worry about it."

Lance shakes his head at him slowly. "How do you do it?" he asks, incredulous, because surely not giving a fuck what people say about you is a level fifty Super Saiyan technique and not attainable by people of this plane. "How the hell do you just ignore it all?"

"I don't have a choice." Shiro stretches out his legs in the bottom of their boat, crossing them at the ankles. "When most people look at me, they only see someone who has lost something. They think of me as somehow less than I would've been, even though they don't have a clue what I've done to make it this far. I like to think that not everyone could've made the same sacrifices I've made."

"Shiro..." Lance starts, swallowing hard, because he's truly not even in the same boat as Shiro. Okay, technically he is, but only in a literal sense: his own self-image problems seem pathetic and shallow next to all the selflessness and strength that is Shiro. "...The crap I used to do with Nyma and Rolo is not nearly the same thing as getting wounded in service to your country. You're a hero; I'm not."

"You don't know that yet. Besides: all our bad experiences either make us worse or better, in the end. Usually the former, if we own up to them."

But Lance has definitely had his fill of heart-to-hearts for one forty-eight hour period. "Hey," he says, pointing at some random point in the sky and shooting for further evasion tactics. "Is that a pteradactyl?" Okay, so maybe he should've picked a bird type, but fuck if Lance knows birds.

"No," Shiro says in a suddenly severe tone, all the muscles in his body seeming to lock, and Lance turns to him, startled. "That's smoke."

And Lance looks where Shiro is looking (which, ironically, is the same direction that Lance has been looking all morning) and sees that yes, Shiro is correct, and there is a definite collumn of black smoke curling up into the blue morning sky.

"Holy fuck," Lance says, and he really does accidentally drop the binoculars in the water this time, the splash flicking beads of water onto his arms and face that he doesn't feel.

Because the dining hall is on _fire._

+++

Thankfully, what Lance thought was the entirety of the dining hall was actually just several feet of shrubbery in front. Not that that's much of a consolation when Hunk is shaking his head sadly at the crackling remains of what was once thriving greenery.

"Sorry, buddy," Lance says, clapping a hand on his friend's shoulder. "You're still a good plant-daddy."

"I don't even know how this happened." Hunk plants his fists on his hips with a frown. "I was making grilled cheeses and the next thing I know, _fwoosh!"_ Hunk waggles his fingers in what is obviously supposed to be an imitation of flames.

"It's the curse!" Coran shouts into the ring of startled counselors that're all huddled around the smoldering remains of Hunk's carefully pruned bushes (thankfully the only victims of the sudden and ultimately unimpressive fire). He tugs anxiously at his mustache, eyes somewhat wild, and Lance is reminded of the time a black bear was bold enough to wander onsite and eat the pulp out of all of Coran's pumpkins in the camp garden.

"Coran," Allura starts, lowering the nozzle of the still-foamy fire-extinguisher, "There is no such thing as a Turkish fire curse-"

"Miss Allura, I understand that you are still young and innocent to the ways of the world-" Lance snorts at this, because he knows full-well that Allura once had a threesome with two Brazilian footballers in a hot tub; he knows because he got a super sweet autograph out of it "-but fire from seemingly nowhere is irrefutable evidence of a curse. Two summers in a row I have nearly brought devastation upon this camp through my own proximity." Coran smartly plucks his camp hat from his head to hold it solemnly over his heart. "For the children's sake, please accept my humble resignation."

"I will not, because you aren't cursed! The nonsense words and gestures of an underpaid Mersin waitress twenty years ago do not a curse make!" Allura throws up her hands, as if beseeching the Gods for more cooperative co-workers. "She was most likely just overcome by the frustrations of dealing with men on a regular basis! I know that I am!"

"Before Coran tries to fire himself," Pidge interjects, gingerly prodding a small finger into smoking base of the large planter, "I would just like to point out that the fire was probably caused by these cigarette butts. Just FYI."

"Woah, really?" Shay quirks her head to the side, crossing her toned arms over her chest. "Does anyone here smoke?"

All the counselors in the ring shake their heads. All save Lance and Hunk, who look at one another askance, Lance biting his lip in affirmation to the unspoken question in Hunk's eyes:

Nyma smokes.

And she and Keith are both trudging up the hill towards them.


End file.
